#AudibleEssentials: National Coming Out Day

Midas PR and Audible have been working together for National Coming Out Day. Here is a list of suggested audiobooks from the editors over at Audible. 

Audible Essential Picks

Title: Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen

Author: Jazz Jennings

Narrated by: Jazz Jennings

Price: £22.19 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk 

Teen activist and trailblazer Jazz Jennings - named one of The 25 Most Influential Teens of the year by Time - shares her very public transgender journey, as she inspires people to accept the differences in others while they embrace their own truths. 

Jazz Jennings is one of the youngest and most prominent voices in the national discussion about gender identity. At the age of five, Jazz transitioned to life as a girl, with the support of her parents. A year later her parents allowed her to share her incredible journey in her first Barbara Walters interview, aired at a time when the public was much less knowledgeable about or accepting of the transgender community. This groundbreaking interview was followed over the years by other high-profile interviews, a documentary, the launch of her YouTube channel, a picture book, and her own reality TV series, I Am Jazz, making her one of the most recognizable activists for transgender teens, children, and adults. 

In her remarkable memoir, Jazz reflects on these very public experiences and how they have helped shape the mainstream attitude toward the transgender community. But it hasn't all been easy. Jazz has faced many challenges, bullying, discrimination, and rejection, yet she perseveres as she educates others about her life as a transgender teen. Through it all her family has been beside her on this journey, standing together against those who don't understand the true meaning of tolerance and unconditional love. Now Jazz must learn to navigate the physical, social, and emotional upheavals of adolescence - particularly high school - complicated by the unique challenges of being a transgender teen. Making the journey from girl to woman is never easy - especially when you began your life in a boy's body.

Title: A Work in Progress: A Memoir

Author: Connor Franta

Narrated by: Connor Franta

Price: £13.49 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk

From YouTube star vlogger Connor Franta comes an audiobook that grows out of his massive social media outreach - filled with annotated postcards, notes, texts, tweets, journal entries, emails, and letters that chart his coming of age.

 

The front of the postcards feature his photos, both of himself and the things that inspire him, with the back answering questions from fans or relating anecdotes about the things that drive and influence him. Listened to from start to finish, the book tells a coherent narrative about Connor's coming of age and becoming an adult and the ups and downs that are a part of that. From bullying to dating to leaving home, this is an inspirational book for fans who are growing up and establishing their individuality. The various modes of communication in the book also reflect changes in Connor's own use of technology over the last several years.

A cross between an essay collection and a coming-of-age memoir, told in brief, the book is divided into sections, each beginning with a short introduction about what's affected Connor growing up. For example, a section on family begins with a short piece on Connor's family and what he's learned from them, so that his fans can get a greater insight into his life and learn something from it.

Title: Sweet Tooth

Author: Tim Anderson

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Price: £7.79 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk

What's a sweets-loving young boy growing up gay in North Carolina in the '80s supposed to think when he's diagnosed with type-1 diabetes? That God is punishing him, naturally.

This was, after all, when gay-hating Jesse Helms was his senator, AIDS was still the boogeyman, and no one was saying, "It gets better." And if stealing a copy of a gay porno magazine from the newsagent was a sin, then surely what the men inside were doing to one another was much worse.

Sweet Tooth is Tim Anderson's uproarious memoir of life after his hormones and blood sugar both went berserk at the age of 15. With Morrissey and The Smiths as the soundtrack, Anderson self-deprecatingly recalls love affairs with vests and donuts, first crushes, coming out, and inaugural trips to gay bars. What emerges is the story of a young man trying to build a future that won't involve crippling loneliness or losing a foot to his disease - and maybe even one that, no matter how unpredictable, can still be pretty sweet.

Title: Not My Father’s Son

Author: Alan Cumming

Narrated by: Alan Cumming

Price: £11.69 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk 

Tremendously moving and eloquently written, Alan Cumming's Not My Father's Son is a brutally honest memoir of the extraordinary life he has led. In this autobiography audiobook edition of his novel, Cumming narrates through the journey that has been his life - from a young boy with an abusive father to the icon he is today. Heartfelt, inspirational and awakening, Cumming's story is one that stays with the listener long after the final word is spoken. This book is not just for fans of this incredible man but for anyone who is touched by the emancipation of a child from the grasps of a violent beginning. 

Title: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

Author: Jeanette Winterson

Narrated by: Jeanette Winterson

Price: £14.99 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction.

 

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry.

 

The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of God's elect, but as this budding evangelical comes of age and comes to terms with her preference for her own sex, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household crumbles. 

Title: The Colour Purple

Author: Alice Walker

Narrated by: Alice Walker

Price: £17.99 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk

As a young black woman living in 1930s Georgia, Celie faces constant violence and oppression. Raped repeatedly by her father, she loses two children and then is married off to a man who treats her like a slave. But a deep bond with her husband's mistress teaches her she is a woman capable of being loved and respected. Gradually, Celie begins to leave the past behind and start a new life.

Title: The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Author: Emily M Danforth

Narrated by: Beth Laufer

Price: £23.19 (free for Audible members)

Available at Audible.co.uk

Set in rural Montana in the early 1990s, Emily M. Danforth's The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a powerful and widely acclaimed YA coming-of-age novel in the tradition of the classic Annie on My Mind.

Cameron Post feels a mix of guilt and relief when her parents die in a car accident.

 

Their deaths mean they will never learn the truth she eventually comes to - that she's gay. Orphaned, Cameron comes to live with her old-fashioned grandmother and ultraconservative aunt Ruth. There she falls in love with her best friend, a beautiful cowgirl. When she's eventually outed, her aunt sends her to God's Promise, a religious conversion camp that is supposed to "cure" her homosexuality. At the camp, Cameron comes face to face with the cost of denying her true identity.

 

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a stunning and provocative literary debut that was a finalist for the YALSA Morris Award and was named to numerous "best" lists.