Shana reviews The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend by Maddy Court

My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend cover

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If you love reading advice columns but wish they were less straight, you may enjoy The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend as much as I did. This is a warm and witty book about queer love and relationships. Each thematically organized chapter offers short, straightforward answers to queries that are both universal, like how to come out, and specific, like what do when you’re a Capricorn working in the restaurant industry and your wealthy girlfriend refuses to use her inheritance to pay the rent for three years. Oh, lesbian drama, I love you so. 

The book primarily draws from the author’s own life experiences, occasionally weaving in wisdom from her panel of queer experts. The answers from Mey Rude, a fat trans Latina writer, were particularly affirming, and humourist Samantha Irby was predictably hilarious.

The questions are fascinating and diverse, and the responses frequently surprised me by pointing out nuances in the questioner’s situation that I’d missed. For example, the answer to a twist on “Why don’t my girlfriend and I have sex anymore,” first asked the questioner to examine why she was pushing her partner for sex, after she’d already said no; later pivoting to prurient interest in the failed threesome the writer had mentioned as an aside.  

Drawing strongly on the author’s personal experiences is both a strength and weakness here. There were a few times when Court’s personal stories felt tangential, and the questions were left barely addressed. For example, I was hoping for an insightful response to a question about how to deal with low self-esteem issues when your body is fatter than your thin, ripped girlfriend. Instead of utilizing resources on body positivity and fat liberation or the perspectives of her fat guest panelists, the book included a long story about Court’s history with hating her body that seemed to miss the point.

Many of the questions reflect common themes in queer women’s lives—falling in love, figuring out your identity, navigating queer society as a marginalized person, having tough conversations with lovers and fam. At it’s best, this book felt like chatting with a friend who cares deeply about you, but also isn’t afraid to call you on your bullshit. 

Since many questions focus on firsts, like trying an open relationship, or learning to date long distance, most of the people featured are in their twenties. Still, every section includes questions from people 30+ as well. As a solidly middle-aged queer, I felt much of the advice was still relevant. Or at a minimum, highly entertaining. 
I picked up this book thinking it would be fun to read aloud on a dyke road trip. Because the tone vacillates from poignant to lightly snarky, it’s not as consistently funny as I expected. But I was struck by how much of the book focuses on kindness, on how we can care for one another, and for ourselves. I recommend The Ex-Girlfriend of My Ex-Girlfriend is my Girlfriend for readers looking for a life guidance, or a reminder the joys and absurdities of queer community.

Elinor Zimmerman reviews Staying Power: Long Term Lesbian Couples by Susan E. Johnson

Published in 1990, this book draws from Johnson’s study of over 100 couples who have been together a decade or more. Her research included questionnaires, in depth interviews, and opportunities for those in her study to write in detail about their relationships. I picked it up because I’m interested in long-term partnership and especially because I love reading lesbian nonfiction from previous decades. I found this book more relevant than I anticipated and I recommend it not only to those interested in lesbian history but anyone who wants to be in a long term partnership.

Johnson includes extended transcripts from conversations with eight couples as well as study findings around major themes that emerged such as commitment, sexuality, and problems. Quotes pepper every section and the women’s stories are amazing. There were a lot of different attitudes and approaches to relationships and a broad range of ages. One of the couples in this book had been together for more than 50 years and reading about their life together was worth picking up the book even if you take nothing else from it.

There is practical advice in this book but more than that there are interesting stories. Some of the couples had relationships I would never want and some had relationships I thought sounded incredible. Some couples were monogamous, some were poly, and some had become celibate. Some had formalized and celebrated their relationships to the extent they were able to at the time and some were largely closeted. A handful were raising children. I found some new ways of envisioning a long term relationship and gained some insights that apply to my own marriage.

The one major shortcoming of this book is that nearly everyone in the study was white. Only 6 out of 216 women in the study were women of color and all of them were partnered with white women. Johnson admits this huge flaw in the study early on but it didn’t appear to me that she did much to try to correct it once she became aware that her outreach efforts were dramatically underrepresenting people of color. She suggests that other researchers, especially women of color, do their own studies to correct this, but I would have liked more attempts to remedy this huge imbalance in her research. Subjects in the study were also more educated and skewed wealthier than the average population. Probably due to the era it was written, trans people aren’t mentioned at all. My only note of caution for interested readers is that you’re getting a book almost exclusively about white cis women and most have a fair amount of class privilege, so the perspective is limited in this way.

Still, I found this book useful. I would recommend it to those interested in recent queer history or in long term partnerships. Whether or not you can apply the ideas in Staying Power to your own life, it’s fascinating to see how marriage equality and increasing ability to be out have shifted intimate relationships over the last few decades. Keeping in mind its limitations, it’s interesting book worth checking out.

Elinor Zimmerman is the author of Certain Requirements, which will be released by Bold Strokes Books in Spring 2018 and is a contributor to the anthology Unspeakably Erotic, edited by D.L. King, and out now. Her website is ElinorZimmerman.com


Guest Lesbrarian: allis

Same Sex In The City (So Your Prince Charming Is Really A Cinderella) by Lauren Levin and Lauren Blizter

The book is divided in theme chapters and inside those chapters it is divided in two parts. First there is a few comments on the title name. For example in “Coming out” the authors give general ideas and advice about what it’s all about. Then there are the personal stories of the authors and what seems to be friends of the authors.

The first parts of the chapters are in my opinion useless. It felt like they were stating the obvious or telling stereotypes at best and at times trying too hard to be funny. Luckily those parts are really short and can be overlooked. It won’t change anything about the reading of the second parts and you won’t miss anything interesting.

The second parts of the chapters are much more interesting because they are personal stories. They are not especially well written or anything but it is nice to read about the experiences of other people and to be able to relate to them. Plus all the authors have a happy positive attitude about their lives. Even when you read about the sad, difficult times it doesn’t seem that bad because the authors have overcome those times and give you a happy view of their lives now. I really enjoyed that point about the book, because in a way it encourages the readers to look at their lives with a positive attitude too and it shows them that problems can be overcome and that in spite of difficulties it is possible to live happily.

My only negative comments on those parts is the lack of diversity. All the girls that wrote the texts seemed to be really wealthy, Jewish (if not all, a lot of them) and from New York. They all seemed to be coming from a similar background which made for some repetitiveness at times. I think it would have been better for the book to gather experiences from a more diverse group of people, showing that there is not just one way of living and experiencing things and that anyone can be happy. It would have balanced the book better and open it to a wider audience.

In short it is a well-intentioned book but lacking in diversity to feel more complete. It is a quick, enjoyable read. I wouldn’t recommend buying it, but if your local library have it I would recommend to check it for the personal happy stories. It’s always nice to read about happy stories when you’re feeling down.

I have this book! It’ll be interesting to compare notes once I read it. Thanks so much for this guest review, allis! Check out allis’s livejournal here.