As the reigning queen of the twentysomething tell-all genre, Lena Dunham , makes her autobiographical debut today, here are some other brilliant works to guide you through your own coming-of-age story and change the way you look at life.
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Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward
This is a gorgeously written book whose chapters alternate between two timelines: one moves forward, tracing Ward's family history, while the other moves backward, recounting the deaths of five men who were all close to her and died within a few years of each other, the first of which was her own brother. The book portrays life in poor, disenfranchised, black communities in Mississippi and the particular consequences they have for young black men and those around them. It illuminates broader issues of inequality and privilege with an unflinching honesty that has stayed with me ever since I read it. —Anita Badejo
Via bloomsbury.com
My Life, by Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan is my role model. I read her memoir when I was 20, and it totally changed my life. Duncan was this radiant goddess of a human being who spent her life traveling the world, throwing bacchanalian boat parties that lasted for days, and she radically changed the way we conceive of dance by tossing aside convention and throwing herself into her art. She danced barefoot, in see-through toga-esque sheets; she taught and she challenged and she inspired. We have virtually no footage of her legendary dances, but her bold, ahead-of-her-time (ahead of our time, even) proclamations of her self-worth as a woman, an artist, and a citizen of the world offer a taste of what she must have been like in life: absolutely dazzling. —Jenn Schaeffer
Via penguin.com
Hyena, by Jude Angelini
Angelini's book is like a mix of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson, chronicling a whirlwind of belligerently wild tribulations all his own. Hyena will transport you from a rough working-class childhood in 1980s Detroit to life as a popular hip-hop DJ and serious troublemaker in modern-day New York and Los Angeles, exposing you to all of the drugs, sex, and philosophical baptisms Angelini has experienced along the way. You won't be able to put it down, and you will come out understanding and understood. —Mariah Summers
Via books.simonandschuster.com
