Every night, Dad would bring home the hydroseeder—a giant tanklike trailer filled with water and grass seed to spray on new lawns-to-be. This particular torture reached its peak one Halloween when he put on a wolf mask, scaled a ladder up to my bedroom window, and scratched at the screen. She’s never afraid to dance or sing in front of strangers, even if she doesn’t know the words or have the right moves, and she loves to host family and friends, which means she always wanted the house in perfect shape. Of course it’s fiction, but still, it would be nice to see a successful, likeable, sensible professional woman occasionally!

I always handled them with care and extreme focus, and of course Dad would have never let me be irresponsible with them, but I never felt at ease during target practice. What I loved about There's Something I Have to Tell You is that it combines the intrigue of a classic domestic thriller with a higher than average level of psychological insight and character development. Some examples of Dad’s loving pranks: In the summers, he would take us out on the lake on our small pontoon boat, and after I watched the classic man-eating shark movie Jaws—at way too young an age—he would swim under the boat and pull my legs from below so that I thought I was being attacked by a shark. They are generous, loving, hardworking people who love their friends, their community, and their work. Even though I saw a few gay characters on television, gayness was something distant, almost like a luxury or a privilege.Chasten’s book reminds everyone of the joy and empowerment that embracing your authentic self can bring.

There's a dysfunctional family, a matriarch that you will love to hate, and a a family of tormented and flawed persons.

We were a competitive family, and putting my best foot forward, both to win and to impress my parents, was always the name of the game. I didn’t have any gay role models, I never saw myself reflected in the characters I read about in books, and there weren’t many characters in movies or television shows living a happy, gay life.