If you're looking for a book that will stir your emotions but also remind you that you're not alone, this is it!

Unmuted: Stories of Courage and Resilience from the GenPRIDE Community is a delightful book with many short stories within its pages.

Background: GenPRIDE is a nonprofit I had not heard of before I picked up this book. It sounds like it's doing fantastic work by focusing on helping the lives of midlife and older LGBTQIA people. And, fun fact, individuals from this group wrote this book! So that's pretty darn cool, if you ask me. This book helped build a community and I am absolutely honoured to be able to pick this book up!

This book starts out with a breathtaking and beautiful dedication to Kevin Charles Patz. He was not only a writer in this book, but a good friend of the other writers. The dedication was heartwarming and made me smile. I'm sad to hear that Kevin has passed, but I'm glad he lived so fondly in others hearts.

The feelings this book gives is just insane. You've felt what these authors have felt, you've just maybe not known how to express them. The anxiety of people, the feeling of pure loneliness - having someone write those out and see that I'm not alone was an amazing coping mechanism for myself. Especially in these wild times - quarantine and pandemic - knowing that I'm not the only one feeling these crazy feelings is nice and soothing. You hate seeing other people having these feelings, but at least you know you're not alone.

The heartbreak of Do Young's Ghost hit home a little too hard. The pain of learning someone you love is dying from a source that isn't kind... It hurts. My heart goes out to Greg. We can sit in the same boat together.

Hiding yourself from others or hating what you have to hide - Jenny, you give me strength and hope that I can be who I strive to be.

Loss from Steven Knipp, Hope's story of birthdays, Shayla's story of addiction and Linda's purely incredible comment - "Why don't people use non-gendered pronouns when they have doubts" is an age old question for me. Funny story, I used to teach classes and couldn't always tell what names matched genders. Oftentimes, I would call the kids "Dude" as a non-gendered term as I was learning what names/nicknames they liked being called and what pronouns they went by. Dude was always an incredible non-gendered term in the world of children. That sentence reminded me of the amazing times I had back then, what a nostalgia trip that was!

Overall, this is a beautiful set of stories. I hope this group writers more and I'm able to pick up all of their books. This is a mesmerizing, must read on my list!

My summary sentence for the whole book: It amazes me how writing can soothe the soul and bring people together.

Five out of five stars!

I received this book for free from the editor, Jennifer Haupt, in exchange of an honest review. ( )