by Tegan and Sara
“One of the most interesting and brave coming-of-age stories I have read in many years. Tegan and Sara reveal the confusion, the unraveling of personal truths, the fear, the excitement, the shame, and the seclusion that many of us endure as we make our way through the world. This is also a book about how music saves people, how music gives us a voice and a reason to keep going.”
JANN ARDEN, singer-songwriter and author of Feeding My Mother
“To navigate the experiential landscape of high school is always an emotional minefield. To have Tegan and Sara unabashedly share the perspective of young lesbians is a rare and invaluable gift, the kind of empathetic education our society is starved for.”
K. D. LANG, singer-songwriter
“What a gift to read the coming-of-age story of the brilliant Tegan and Sara. High School gives us a glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of both sisters as individuals and an evolving band. Their vulnerability, honesty, and compassion burst through, and I know [it] will make countless people feel less alone. It is so important for the LGBTQ+ community to have memoirs like this to be able to recognize themselves and be inspired to follow their truth. Oh what I would have done to have this book in high school. I am endlessly grateful to Tegan and Sara for giving so much to this world.”
ELLEN PAGE, actor and producer
“It should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever listened to a song by Tegan and Sara that while not only are they able to convey the raw and complex emotions of the high school experience, the aimlessness of suburban life, and the exhilaration of finding your way out, they also speak universal truths about intimacy between families and sisters, friends and lovers. They’ve captured a time and a place so perfectly, I can’t exactly be sure that I wasn’t there.”
BUSY PHILIPPS, actor and author of New York Times bestselling This Will Only Hurt a Little
“A genius memoir. Tegan and Sara are massively gifted songwriters, so it shouldn’t have shocked me like it did. There’s simply nothing like it. It’s a completely original, utterly gripping, gorgeously written and captivating memoir that must be read. Tegan and Sara are bold, brilliant storytellers. High School is the freshest, most beautiful, and fearlessly powerful coming-of-age memoir.”
AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS, New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors and Toil & Trouble
“Tegan and Sara have pulled back the curtain on a formative chapter in their lives and offer a gloriously dizzying, richly observed account of how they became who they are today and what inspired the music we’ve come to know and love. Funny, frank, and so very cool, High School is basically the teenage best friend I always wanted growing up.”
DAN LEVY, actor, writer, and producer
“Intense, vulnerable, and life-affirming—everything I’m looking for! Tegan and Sara take us back through their whirlwind journey, densely packed with the intricate complications and the envious, unspoken connection of growing up [with] an identical twin.”
ABBI JACOBSON, comedian and author of I Might Regret This
“Candid, tender, courageously honest, and heartbreakingly familiar; I could see myself and my own experience reflected in these stories, more so than in anything else I’ve ever read. Reading this book moved me deeply.”
JULIEN BAKER, singer and songwriter
“Deeply moving, relatable. . . . High School never holds back from the absolute authenticity Tegan and Sara have become known for. I never wanted the book to end.”
CLEA DUVALL, actor and writer
“High School highlights the indisputable fact that Tegan and Sara were never just musicians—they are master storytellers. In reflecting on that torturous span of time spent agonizing over one’s body, friendships, parents, and desires, this book highlights how high school is less of a place or memory but a metaphor for uncertainty, and underlines the salvation that can only be found in music. High School foreshadows the beginning of a rich and riveting literary career.”
VIVEK SHRAYA, musician and author of I’m Afraid of Men
“This account of the pains and pleasures of dirtbag queer-girl adolescence is everything you could want from a memoir: honest and hilarious, dishy and sweet, smart and self-aware, and utterly charming. What a gift to get this view of Tegan and Sara as sisters, as friends, and as artistic collaborators, as they were becoming musical icons, and—more important—themselves.”
CARMEN MARIA MACHADO, author of Her Body and Other Parties
“An engrossing, sharply crafted, deeply authentic look at the misery of (queer) adolescence and the gorgeous glory of becoming yourself. So much angst and revelation, depression, inebriation, inspiration, vulnerability, and power. A wild, teenage ride I could not put down.”
MICHELLE TEA, author of Against Memoir
“High School embodies the singular gift of words leaping off of the page and becoming feelings, rattling around in the hearts and minds of a reader. The truth of nostalgia is that it must have multiple lenses to operate in its most flourishing form. Much like in their music, in this book the voices of Tegan and Sara are two distinct bodies of water flowing into the same harmonious river, spilling through the echoing hallways of old high schools, through the bedrooms of first heartbreaks, through the old haunts that remind you of your own. This book is a triumph of memory, affection, and engaging writing.”
HANIF ABDURRAQIB, author of Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest
“This book is the LSD-fueled, wallet-chained, Kurt Cobain–inspired handbook of how to become young, queer rock stars, written by chapter-swapping twins whom I wish I had read when I was in high school. This book would have changed everything. I recommend reading it under the covers with a flashlight, and hiding it from your mother.”
IVAN COYOTE, author of Tomboy Survival Guide and Rebent Sinner