While Broome’s lived experiences are uniquely his, Punch Me Up to the Gods is a compelling and consequential read for anyone who has ever felt deeply different and alone.

You have racism telling you you’re one thing, telling you you’re worth less than white people. You also, sometimes, have this homophobic masculinity in the Black culture that tells you that you should be this thing. The attempt for “Tabula Rasa” is to say that you don’t have to be any of that. This is your life; you can do and say and be exactly who you are. You don’t have to conform to these standards.

In her debut novel, You Will Never Be Normal, memoirist, poet, and retired pediatric ICU nurse Catherine Klatzker comes to terms with her split-off “Parts”—her selves that hold dissociated and unprocessed memories.

They had not had sex in years, but this did not bother Marla. If she were to walk past the same brook every day and watch it ebb away, it would not strike her as a horror. Only sudden changes, extreme and violent, suggested horror. Hurricanes, droughts.