Welcome to Litsy!

But then she dies. One minute she's there the next she's not.
The thing that gets me the most is knowin' that every second for the rest of ma life is gonna take me further away from this moment, from 'er bein' alive. That I'll grow older, an' I'll change, an' I'll always be travellin' away from now. It's like bein' on a spaceship an' watchin' the earth get further away, knowin' you'll never be able to go home again.

I keep thinkin' about this textbook we had in French. It had a picture on the cover of a group of teenagers. Three lads an' three girls, all tanned an' good lookin'. They're on bikes, at a train station, but they've stopped to talk. It's summer an' they're all smilin'. All look dead relaxed. An' I must've sat an' stared at that picture for hours, wishin' I could be part o' their world. Coz I'd give owt to be like them. But I don't know how.

Fag Ash said I looked like Skeletor...

Lady Die sez I look dramatic, an' I like that coz I din't know you could look dramatic, an' I am partial to a bit of drama. Gaz sez I'm an attention-seeker. Peter sez I'm a "kitchen-sink drama queen". I don't know what that means, but put it this way, I'm impossible to ignore. Everyone knows me, an' no one forgets meetin' me. Ya can see it in photos, people just gawpin' at me. I love it.

Ma sandwiches, ma rules...

If the same book can make you laugh and cry, feel appalled and encouraged, angry and heartwarmed, that's a good reading experience, no?
I loved this book; it's frank, uncompromising, difficult to read at times, whilst being uplifting and inspiring.
I'd recommend reading the acknowledgements at the end of the book, extensive though they are, as they provide some useful codas.

The wait for publication... 😤
Some good advance reviews from other writers and activists for Paris Lees' memoir of growing up gay on an '80s/'90s council estate, into the '00s and a tough 'hedonistic' lifestyle, and into her realisation of being trans.