Bookshop Santa Cruz staff recommendation:

I could not put down this engaging memoir by Emmy, Grammy, and Tony award winner Billy Porter, the star of Pose and Kinky Boots. Humorous, heartbreaking, sassy, and inspiring, Unprotected takes readers from Porter’s childhood in Pittsburgh (where his vocal talent and gayness were evident by age 5) to New York City, where he pursues his dream of being a performer. Porter leaps from past to present and from personal to political while calling out homophobia and racism in the industry, the church, and beyond. Incredibly gifted and hard working, he will have you cheering for him as he fights to live life as his authentic self.—S.B.

As a person who doesn’t read a lot of nonfiction—or science books for that matter—I just want to say that I loved The Awakened Brain! In part nearly a mystery novel, and in other ways a memoir with a healthy dose of bite-sized, digestible science, it makes you feel like you’re standing next to Miller as she explains the union between spirituality and science in front of her peers; and as she joins psychiatric ward patients in prayer.—Morgan

Reading poet laureate Joy Harjo’s memoir is like soaking in peaceful, healing waters. We're introduced to the Poet Girl and stanza by stanza, chapter by chapter, we come to know her as the Poet Warrior. Through the telling of her own historical trauma, Harjo gently, with great understanding and wisdom, helps us to see how we can sit with and talk to the broken parts of our own story and retell it to ourselves as an act of grieving, healing, and maybe even strength. I will give this book to my sisters and my friends knowing that what is experienced in reading this book is more than I could ever say myself, and everything I want them to know.—Jenny

Somehow, Copenhaver has dissected the intricate and passionately dark minds of teenage girls in a manner unlike anything I’ve seen before. With a rotating perspective, this murder mystery reads like diary entries, each page unfiltered and unique. The friendship between Judy and Philippa blurs the lines between platonic love, infatuation, and blind obsession. It hooked me from the start and kept me anxiously waiting for the moment I could sit down and continue reading. —Nikole