A Product of Genetics (and Day Drinking): A Never-Coming-of-Age Story

“If you don’t have your shit together or life figured out, you are about to feel a whole lot better about yourself,” writes Gutierrez at the beginning of her rollicking debut memoir-in-essays. Offering playful accounts of memorable moments from her life, Gutierrez, who was raised Catholic, recalls how during her first confession she became “terror stricken” after the voice that absolved her for saying “pussies” in church appeared to come not from her priest but from God. She reflects on coming of age as an “elder millennial,” recounting her realization at age 17 that she was a “budding bisexual” after seeing Kate Winslet in Titanic and a disastrous relationship in her 20s with a woman she connected with through MySpace who did little besides cry about her ex. Even the more somber selections are lightened by Gutierrez’s jocular tone, as when she quips about her struggle to conceive: “I was the disappointed owner of ovaries that were about as functional as a celibacy vow at a college party.” Gutierrez brings a winning mix of candor and humor, dispensing a bounty of embarrassing anecdotes, endearing missteps, and Y2K-era references (“We reveled in using Napster and LimeWire to download and infect family computers with both terrible music and debilitating viruses”). Unfiltered and fun, this will resonate with ’90s kids. Agent: Claire Draper, Azantian Literary. (June)