High School (book)

High School is a 2019 memoir by twin sisters Sara Quin and Tegan Quin, of the Canadian indie pop group Tegan and Sara. It is their first book and was published on September 24, 2019 by Simon & Schuster Canada. It recounts their childhood and adolescence growing up in Alberta in the 1990s as well as their musical beginnings. It was published three days before the release of Tegan and Sara's ninth studio album, Hey, I'm Just Like You, which contains re-recordings of unreleased demo songs that the duo recorded as teenagers.[2]

High School
First edition cover
AuthorSara Quin and Tegan Quin
Audio read bySara Quin and Tegan Quin[1]
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
SubjectMemoir
PublisherSimon & Schuster Canada
Publication date
September 24, 2019
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages384
ISBN978-1-9821-1266-0
782.42166092/2 B
LC ClassML421.T408 Q56 2019
Websiteteganandsara.com/highschool

The book won a 2020 Alex Award.[3]

Summary

The book covers the sisters' childhood and adolescence and their first relationships while growing up during the mid-1990s as queer teenagers in Calgary, Alberta. It also covers their musical beginnings, up until their career began to take off. It is written in alternating chapters from both Tegan's point of view and Sara's.[4]

Publication

High School was announced on December 11, 2018, nine months ahead of its publication.[5][6][7][8][9][10]

The book was published on September 24, 2019 by Simon & Schuster Canada in Canada,[11] by MCD, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, in the United States[12][13] and Virago Press (Hachette UK) in the United Kingdom.[14]

The book debuted at number fifteen on The New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction best-sellers list on October 13, 2019.[15]

Reception

Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly gave the book positive reviews, but both magazines felt that the memoir would mostly appeal to those who are already fans of the band."[16][17]

Jancee Dunn, writing for The Washington Post, gave the book a positive review, calling the sisters "skilled writers with an eye for detail" and praising their account of their experience as twins and as teenagers, but lamented that the book suffered from the "stream-of-consciousness verbosity" of a diary.[18]

Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone praised the book, calling it "a quietly heroic rock and roll origin story" and writing, "Those explosively detailed depictions of their earliest experiences trying to find girlfriends are worthy of an excellent YA novel, thanks to Tegan or Sara's unsparingly real, matter-of-fact prose style."[19]

Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic wrote, "While Tegan and Sara are hilarious in their onstage banter, on the page their anecdotes read as spooky, solemn obstacle-running. A melancholy tone runs throughout. Queerness complicates what otherwise might seem like just hijinks."[20]

Publication history
  • High School. Canada: Simon & Schuster Canada. September 24, 2019. ISBN 9781982112660.
  • High School. United States: MCD. September 24, 2019. ISBN 9780374169947.
  • High School. United Kingdom: Virago. September 24, 2019. ISBN 9780349011967.
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References
  1. "High School Audiobook by Sara Quin and Tegan Quin". Simon & Schuster Canada. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  2. Daw, Stephen (July 9, 2019). "Tegan and Sara Announce Ninth Album 'Hey, I'm Just Like You'". Billboard. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  3. "2020 Youth Media Award Winners". American Libraries Magazine. Retrieved 2020-01-27.
  4. Gordon, Holly (September 25, 2019). "5 things we learned from Tegan and Sara's memoir". CBC. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  5. Patrick, Ryan B. (December 11, 2018). "Tegan and Sara are writing a memoir, will be published in Sept. 2019". CBC. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  6. Sodomsky, Sam (December 11, 2018). "Tegan and Sara Announce Memoir High School". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  7. Ginsberg, Gab (December 11, 2018). "Tegan and Sara Announce New Memoir 'High School'". Billboard. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  8. Breihan, Tom (December 11, 2018). "Tegan And Sara Announce Memoir". Stereogum. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  9. Slingerland, Calum (December 11, 2018). "Tegan and Sara Announce 'High School' Memoir". Exclaim!. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  10. Skinner, Tom (December 11, 2018). "Tegan and Sara to tell 'intricate stories' of their past in new memoir, 'High School'". NME. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  11. "High School by Sara Quin and Tegan Quin". Simon & Schuster Canada. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  12. "High School". MCD Books. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  13. "High School - Sara Quin and Tegan Quin - MCD". Macmillan. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  14. "High School by Sara Quin and Tegan Quin". Virago. Hachette UK. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  15. "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers". The New York Times. October 13, 2019. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  16. "High School by Sara Quin & Tegan Quin". Kirkus Reviews. July 15, 2019. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  17. "Nonfiction Book Review: High School by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin". Publishers Weekly. June 24, 2019. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  18. Dunn, Jancee (September 17, 2019). "In 'High School,' Tegan and Sara Quin reflect on coming out and hitting it big". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  19. Dolan, Jon (September 24, 2019). "RS Recommends: Tegan and Sara's Memoir 'High School' Is a Moving Coming of Age Story". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  20. Kornhaber, Spencer (September 30, 2019). "Tegan and Sara Rewrite the Queer Coming-of-Age Story". The Atlantic. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
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