On first glance, this cover doesn’t whisper, it doesn’t speak, it doesn’t even shout. No, this cover screeches through a megaphone wrapped in polyester flowers: “LOOK AT ME, I’M SELF-AWARELY BAD ON PURPOSE!”
We’ve got:
- A photo so grainy it looks like it was taken with a 1995 disposable Kodak, left in the glove compartment during a heatwave, then developed at a Walgreens that was on fire.
- A “drag, but make it yard sale” aesthetic—sun hat, beads, oversized sunglasses—all screaming “I spent $13.42 at Goodwill, and honey, it shows.”
- Fonts stacked on fonts, like someone bought a sampler pack of whimsical display typefaces and then went, “Yes. All of them. Right now.”
- Random flowers slapped on top of the chaos, because nothing says memoir about self-esteem and closeted angst like a half-baked attempt at turning the design into a Martha Stewart scrapbook page.
And then there’s the pièce de résistance: the hand-lettered cardboard sign that says “Tough Sissy.” It’s either the boldest ironic statement in queer literature… or it’s something a 7th grader would hold in detention when the teacher got tired of their sass. Either way: ICONIC.
The result? At first glance, it reads less like “professional memoir cover” and more like “poster for a one-man Fringe Festival comedy show staged in a vegan coffee shop basement.” Which—let’s be clear—isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just… not good, either.
This cover is campy chaos incarnate. You’ll either love it for what it is or mistake it for a print-on-demand gag gift from Spencer’s.