Which time period interested you most – the 70s, 80s, or the 90s? What details stood out? Did you learn anything that surprised you?
The devastation of the AIDS epidemic really stood out to me. I feel like it’s one of the great failures of our nation, but it is rarely talked about. When Bernice mentions realizing why there are so many women designers, it just gutted me to think of the generation of people lost, often dying alone and being ignored.
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Being just a little older than Birdie, I lived through all of those decades at about the same time as she did. I thought the author did a great job explaining them. The difference in women and the Gay community and how that all came about. I hear people talk today about the 80;s and I think..you obviously weren’t living during that period because AIDS was horrific and so was the recession.
Probably the episodes of the Aids epidemic brought back the traumatic memories of the people that were affected and the way it changed public outlook of casual sex.
I found the early days in the 70s the most interesting, especially about the dynamics and events with Birdie’s parents and how she was first discovered. I was shocked at how Birdie’s parents, particularly her mother, so readily disengaged. It was heart wrenching.
I liked all of the eras, but I really liked the 70s. It was such an exciting and tragic time.
I too was disheartened with Birdie’s parents, my girls were teenagers during that time. I would not in a million years ever have given permission for such a lifestyle. Amazing how disengaged she was and then had the audacity to say she didn’t have any idea what she was signing. Poor excuse, poor example of a mother.