A memoir of growing up and coming out.
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
Where do you go when you’re looking for love? For Katie Heaney, it was pretty much anywhere. She’d always wanted a boyfriend and she’d had lots of crushes in her life, but she was never meaningfully kissed. At age 21, she went to Madrid for a semester in hopes of meeting a man, but after binge-streaming The L Word and falling for Shane, Heaney began to think that maybe she might be a lesbian. After she met a woman who was, no question, lesbian, she decided to shake herself out of her complacency by visiting New York and then moving there. But Heaney remained frustratingly dateless. Eventually her “attraction to men was just gone,” and shortly thereafter, Heaney met Lydia online. Her almost-30-year dating desert became an oasis as she not only imagined herself with a woman, but was with a woman. Nothing felt more right.
Author Katie Heaney writes of her journey with a charming awkwardness that endears her to any reader who’s ever felt as though the different drummer they’re marching to is actually playing the bongos: same beat, different crowd. This book is worthy for its unique coming-out POV. In that regard, Would You Rather? is perfect for memoir-lovers, Heaney fans, and those who bloom late.
This article appears in the May 2018 edition of OutSmart magazine.
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