The memoir of a girl who grows up as a tomboy in North Dakota. She survives the Cuban Missle Crisis, as well as communists and hippies who were the enemy not to mention lesbians. As she politely denies herself, she continues to grow as women's liberation and lesbian feminism draws attention to thinking and wondering where she fits in this time. She gets together with others to live in a rural utopia with freedom of all the problems they face. Eventually Dianna finds herself on a dairy farm with her “friend” discovering new problems.

The author has written an excellent yet personal story of her life including the difficulties she faced indifferent time periods. It is one of the best I have read.

An interesting memoir of a lesbian “back to the land” movement from the 1960s and 1970s. These were brave, intrepid pioneers and it was a pleasure to read of their experiences. Perhaps some of the current attitudes seem a little dated but this was an enjoyable read regardless.
My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is a great window to the world of the lesbian back to the land movement, with insights about day to day life, relationships and rural Minnesota.

I felt very misled with this book, having thought it would be a work of fiction loosely based upon the author's life during this time in the 70s and 80s. However, it seems like it's an actual autobiography. I was willing to go with it anyway, but I was immediately put off by the writing style in the opening chapters. She wasn't setting the stage, she was immediately jumping in and rattling off random facts, places, and people while loosely explaining the time period and what was happening historically. I couldn't get into it at all and ended up abandoning the book quite early on. This isn't the right fit for me.

This book piqued my interest as it is published by my alma mater, the University of Minnesota. I had a wonderful time getting to know the spirited and forward thinking queer women who were unafraid and unfettered of who they were and what they wanted, a haven for queer women looking for self sufficiency and safety in numbers. These are the women that blazed trails and to hear their stories first hand was a real treat. There are lessons to be learned and memories to get immersed told through sharp wit and sometimes an equally sharp tongue. I had a great time getting to know so many interesting women.

I would love to be more into this book than I am. She's a nice storyteller, and it's a good bit of history. that has paved much of the way for how i now live. I realize that this is a memoir, and thus, talks of the past - but some of the author's current opinions seem to have clearly stayed in the past as well, making this a hard book for me to swallow at times, such as the concept of "feeling like a patroit" and "remaking America in its own image" - now that many of us have a firm understanding of colonizer mentality and what indigenous women and POC suffer because of this concept, this author's idea of "America" leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when paired with "feminism" - it's the kind of "feminism" we're trying to dismantle now in lieu of something more intersectional. .