A first-person memoir of Saeed Jones' adolescence and young adulthood, focused on his efforts to find safety, desire, and selfhood as a young Black gay man in 1990s Texas.

A first-person memoir about a First Nation woman's passage through a troubled childhood, early and fraught motherhood, and ongoing struggles with mental health and identity. The narrative pieces together memory, family history, and personal reflection to show how past trauma informs present life and relationships.

A series of personal essays by George M. Johnson that trace growing up as a Black queer youth in the U.S., linking autobiographical scenes to direct address to younger Black queer readers.

A first-person memoir in which the author confronts his upbringing, family relationships, and struggles with body weight and compulsive behaviors while placing those personal troubles against broader questions of race, responsibility, and belonging.

A first-person life account that traces a Black lesbian’s development from childhood into adulthood, attending to family, work, lovers, and the communities that shaped her.

A first-person memoir tracing the author's journey from an abusive childhood through competitive swimming, substance use, and sexual exploration toward eventual stability in adult life.

Janet Mock recounts her path to womanhood from childhood through young adulthood, focusing on the realities of growing up transgender and multiracial in Hawaii and negotiating family, community, and medical systems.

Richard Wright's Black Boy is a memoir of his childhood and early adulthood, following life in the segregated American South and his later move to Chicago where he begins a writing career and political engagement.

A first-person memoir that links the author's history of sexual trauma to long-term weight gain and the ways her body has been treated by herself and others. The book focuses on physical hunger and its emotional roots while situating those experiences within social reactions, stigma, and personal coping.

Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming is a verse memoir that records her early childhood and adolescent memories growing up African American in the 1960s.

A poet-turned-memoirist looks closely at the death of her mother and the aftermath for the daughter left to piece together memory, legal facts, and family history.

A firsthand memoir of growing up Black and poor in mid-20th-century rural Mississippi, following the author's life from childhood into her twenties.