"Crying in the Bathroom" by Erika L. Sánchez
laugh out loud pain and vulnerability you didn't know you needed
Crying in the Bathroom by Erika L. Sánchez is a memoir-in-essays by a Mexican American Chicago native. I listened to this on audiobook, one of my favorite ways to read memoirs, and it did not disappoint.
Sánchez is brutally honest, hilarious, and unapologetic about topics like depression, sex, relationships, being poor, career, writing, whiteness, womanhood, and being a daughter and granddaughter of immigrants who grew up on the South Side of Chicago.
Her essays sprinkle in all of the above while telling her tale of growing up, becoming a writer, finding love, making love, and learning to love herself.
While we had very different upbringings, as a Brown daughter of immigrants who grew up middle class in the suburbs of Chicago, I still felt a kinship, especially when Erika’s Chicago accent came out.
As I read memoirs, I’m also reading them to see if they’ll be comp titles for my memoir. While this book is not a comp title, I still related to her experiences with staying with men who just weren’t it and not being able to stay in unsufferable corporate jobs. The sweet relationship arc with her mom reminds me of the direction I’m taking in my memoir.
While this is a collection of essays, it provides a seamless story of Sánchez’s upbringing, education, relationships, writing life, and depression from being a misfit kid to a successful writer who is satisfied with her life, while still retaining those beautifully rebellious qualities.
Sánchez shares about the challenges of growing up poor and just being able to make rent which she finally left her home. She wresltles with loving men who lie to her, only to stay with them. Her frustrations about slowly dying in corporate culture while feeling guilty about hating it so much because of all the undesirable labor her immigrant parents went through is relatable. I was always rooting for every step in her writing career because all I want to do is see Brown girls who give a shit about the world do what they love and get paid for it. I enjoyed the wild but endearing stories about her grandparents. While survival is a huge theme of this book, so is being a total badass woman. Crying in the Bathroom invigorates you to be who you are and know who you are: baggage, emotions, and all.
She is incredibly reflective, self-aware, and she made me challenge my own assumptions with her lived experiences and hot takes. Her self-deprecation makes you laugh, and it also gives you empathy for Sánchez as more about her is revealed. No matter what she shares, I felt like I was there with her, witnessing her ups and downs and wanting to say, “Keep going, you’ll be okay!”
Most importantly, I also used to cry in the bathroom out in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Knowing Erika was doing it not so far away from me feels like an intimacy I didn’t know I needed.
Have you read this memoir or do you want to? Let me know in the comments.