It takes the average reader 4 hours and 44 minutes to read Choosing Family by Francesca T. Royster
Assuming a reading speed of 250 words per minute. Learn more
A brilliant literary memoir of chosen family and chosen heritage, told against the backdrop of Chicago’s North and South Sides As a multiracial household in Chicago’s North Side community of Rogers Park, race is at the core of Francesca T. Royster and her family's world, influencing everyday acts of parenting and the conception of what family truly means. Like Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, this lyrical and affecting memoir focuses on a unit of three: the author; her wife Annie, who's white; and Cecilia, the Black daughter they adopt as a couple in their forties and fifties. Choosing Family chronicles this journey to motherhood while examining the messiness and complexity of adoption and parenthood from a Black, queer, and feminist perspective. Royster also explores her memories of the matriarchs of her childhood and the homes these women created in Chicago’s South Side—itself a dynamic character in the memoir—where “family” was fluid, inclusive, and not necessarily defined by marriage or other socially recognized contracts. Calling upon the work of some of her favorite queer thinkers, including José Esteban Muñoz and Audre Lorde, Royster interweaves her experiences and memories with queer and gender theory to argue that many Black families, certainly her own, have historically had a “queer” attitude toward family: configurations that sit outside the white normative experience and are the richer for their flexibility and generosity of spirit. A powerful, genre-bending memoir of family, identity, and acceptance, Choosing Family, ultimately, is about joy—about claiming the joy that society did not intend to assign to you, or to those like you.
Choosing Family by Francesca T. Royster is 282 pages long, and a total of 71,064 words.
This makes it 95% the length of the average book. It also has 87% more words than the average book.
The average oral reading speed is 183 words per minute. This means it takes 6 hours and 28 minutes to read Choosing Family aloud.
Choosing Family is suitable for students ages 12 and up.
Note that there may be other factors that effect this rating besides length that are not factored in on this page. This may include things like complex language or sensitive topics not suitable for students of certain ages.
When deciding what to show young students always use your best judgement and consult a professional.
Choosing Family by Francesca T. Royster is sold by several retailers and bookshops. However, Read Time works with Amazon to provide an easier way to purchase books.
To buy Choosing Family by Francesca T. Royster on Amazon click the button below.
Buy Choosing Family on Amazon