 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book with a character experiencing menopause.
Girls Will Be Girls, by Leslea Newman. This was a collection of stories about Jewish lesbian life in the 1990s. The era definitely came across: cell phones were not yet ubiquitous, queer partners and parents had no legal protections, and AIDS was usually a quick death sentence. There were a lot of stories about parents and children: controlling parents, rebellious lesbian daughters, and lesbians wanting children. Most of the romance stories had a strong butch/femme vibe. The quality of the stories was uneven. The best one was "Laddy Come Home," a heartbreaking story about a lesbian parent bereft after her partner broke up with her and took their child out of state. There were a few good love stories, like "The Babka Sisters" and "A Femme in the Hand." The story about menopause, "Eggs McMenopause," was a surreal piece about a woman becoming obsessed with eggs. The least enjoyable was "Family is Family," a 14-page monologue with every negative "Jewish mother" cliche. Unfortunately it was the first story in the collection, and was followed by "The Kiss," another unsatisfying unhappy-family story. The title novella was an over-the-top farce in which a therapist's girlfriend had an affair with one of the therapy clients. By the end, it was clear that all three of them needed to have their heads examined.
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