I'm Special and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves To Get Through Our Twenties is a humorous memoir of twentysomething traumas by Ryan O'Connell. A blogger and TV writer, this has been adapted into the Netflix show Special.
Are you spending your paycheck on $200 face cream and hibiscus cocktails? You deserve it, you're special. Ryan skewers today's generation who curate only the best pictures to post online, while the reality of seeking validation in swipes and likes on social media is much messier. This is the coddled generation who grew up with protective helicopter parents, who received awards for just showing up.
Ryan's twenties were messy and he refreshingly admits it - rips that band aid right off. His family and friends were unconditionally accepting when he came out, and he's extremely candid about navigating the gay universe of labels, giving blowjobs and having a dick in his ass. Yes, it's that kind of book. That's what makes him special in a family that includes a brother who started a niche porn website and became a millionaire in his twenties, and a sister who is a professional hula-hooper.
After college he moved New York where he interned for magazines like Interview and wrote for online blogs. It was New York in his twenties, where partying led to a lifestyle of blackout drinking; drugs like Molly and cocaine led to painkillers like Percocet, Roxicet, Adderall, and Vicodin; shady drug dealers led to upscale dealers and then a doctor who happily supplied bulk Xanax. Didn't he tell me 50 pages back that his Dad didn't even know he was drinking?
It went from chic to bleak, and he writes openly without regrets having survived it all.
And he was born with cerebral palsy.
Still has it, so that makes him special. Often it was easier to say he had been hit by a car (which also happened). This is a memoir about sleeping with all the wrong people, wandering through your twenties doing everything you shouldn't, and doing it as a "gay gimp with bad skin and rainbow hair".
He's a very funny writer - this is either what not to do, or, instantly relatable.
Recommended.
2015 / Tradeback / 195 pages
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