I didn't know much about Manigault Newman going in, just that she'd worked in the Trump administration. I didn't know that she was a reality star, having appeared in three seasons of The Apprentice, including the first and a celebrity edition. She got to know--and admire--Trump during The Apprentice and was connected with him off and on until 2017 when Chief of Staff John Kelly fired her. Note that everything I report here is based on Manigault Newman's book. I don't know if things she wrote are spin or alternative facts or what. 

Manigault Newman admits that she was in the Trump cult and only during his presidency did she finally start to see that he is a narcissist who is completely devoid of empathy. She alternates between that point of view and believing that Trump's behaviors were because of a medical condition. 

She's shocked to learn that Trump is racist, and that there was an N-word tape from her Apprentice days, that had to have referred to her and/or the other Black competitor on the show Kwame Jackson. It's a lot of the same too-little-too-late revelations that other Trump administration alums have shared, but still a compelling enough memoir. I listened to the book, which Manigault Newman narrated herself, and she's got a nice voice. Her Trump impersonation isn't good, but her Kellyanne Conway isn't bad. 

I don't know why I'm so into Trump narratives. I think his presidency was just so bizarre that I want to understand it. How did America get here?!?

Girl Zines is an extraordinarily readable piece of academic writing. Piepmeier's prose, while not at all simplistic, is accessible. She engages deeply with feminist and zine scholarship and is the paragon of close reading zines. 

GenX artist Jacinta Bunnell shares her latchkey kid story, along with those of people in her communities. (full disclosure: I contributed a paragraph. I wish I'd written something longer)

The remembrances have a common thread of resilience, along with the vulnerability and loneliness of being unparented after school. The book is illustrated with images of latchkey and potlatch craft projects. You can read passages and view the art in Bunnell's Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1399433152/latchkey-township-book-collected-stories

I loved Boulley's first book, and the follow-up, which takes place in the same universe, is just as compelling. For other Firekeeper's Daughter fans, Daunis appears in Warrior Girl as the aunt of the narrator, Perry, and her twin sister Pauline. It's summer, and the girls are in a cultural engagement program, doing internships with Ojibwe organizations. Pauline starts off in the Tribal Council and Perry in the museum. Unlike Pauline, Perry isn't especially motivated, but she is passionate about her people, and that passion doesn't always server her well, internship wise. Perry's boss at her first placement, whose last name is Turtle, is a slow-and-steady guy, whereas Perry can't/won't restrain her rage when tribal artifacts in the care of white people are fetishized and/or stored in batches of teeth in cereal boxes. (Can you blame her for cursing Dr. Creepy White Person out in Ojibwemowin?)

The story follows Perry's emotional growth path, contextualizing it in a MMIW mystery and a love story. 

It just didn't hold my attention, unfortunately. 

Just couldn't get into it. 

This looks great, but I had it as an ebook from the library, when I'd really need it as a print reference that I owned. 

Shara is an enjoyable read, and probably invaluable for queer kids growing up in Christofascist states.

 

It takes a while to get where it goes, but is pretty worth it and heartwarming. There are entertaining quotes like

and

I love a dance story, but this one lacks depth, maybe? I didn't love the visual convention of having less contrast for certain moods because my vision can't handle it. I feel like I'd like to read a text-only novel by the same author. 

Paris Hilton is as vapid and self-obsessed as one might expect, but she has a soupçon of self-awareness, when it comes to her ADHD. I didn't know she'd endured a child abuse lockup boarding school. That's really horrible.