Tegan and Sara chronicle their high school years, primarily centering how they came to their music, but surprisingly, though maybe it shouldn’t be, really digging deep about their queer journeys. Showcasing the homophobia of their friends and parents and teachers, and their struggle to understand who they were coming into. It feels genuine and sometimes pretty raw—especially when they’re so open about the chasms and rifts between one another. They fought a lot and took drugs and sometimes treated their parents and others with a kind of viciousness reserved for the ignorance teenagers sometimes embody. This context of why that all was occurring is really impactful.

On top of that, the narration by both is fantastic, there are old tape tracks peppered in throughout, and there’s a 20 minute interview at the end too. And it seems like they may have written their chapters separately and then coalesced a book from it, and that lends it a kind of specificity and unique expression I haven’t encountered in other memoirs. Really, stand out great-fantastic.