Book cover of Fairest: A Memoir

Book description

Finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction

"Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." --The New York Times Book Review

"A ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival." --Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

A love…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Fairest as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Fairest by Meredith Talusan is an incisively observant memoir of class, ability, and whiteness, among many other subjects.

I was so enthralled by Talusan’s compelling story about living with albinism and passing as white, first in the Philippines as a child, which led to a television acting career, and later in the United States as an adult. Talusan’s deft descriptions of her journey from childhood stardom to her education at Harvard to her eventual coming out and transition hooked me from the first page and made this book so difficult to put down.

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