David Leite's touching autobiography takes a look at himself from a small boy growing up to his present life as the creator of the James Beard Award winning website Leite's Culinaria. Leite introduces us to the happy memories and tribulations that have assailed him. His genuine and candid look at what he would later come to realize as a maelstrom of mental illness and the confusion of sexual identity that began to afflict him from a very young age.
David's family is the perfect example of an immigrants that came to America to begin a better life and were successful. Many would say he had the perfect childhood but that is the whole point of David's story. He was dealing with an illness that he could not even imagine never mind ask for help with and at the same time he began to realize that he felt differently than was considered normal about other boys. The confusion of realizing he was gay in a time when that was considered a moral flaw was hard for him considering he had a mother who he dubbed a bloodhound for Jesus. So even surrounded as he was by loving support from his family, his mental illness and secrets caught him in an undertow of anguish that would follow him for most of his life until being correctly diagnosed helped him fight his inner demons and finding the right person to love helped him conquer his fears.
David Leite is not saying he's perfect or cured. What you will find in here is the story of a young man who was vulnerable and weak and searched for answers, stumbling from one idea to another until he found it at last. This book is a look at the depths that some have to struggle out of and a hope for those who are lost on their own paths. David is a guiding light to learn to accept who you are and not be afraid to ask for help. This is a book about growing into your own identity no matter what. It is at the very end a book about hope and we could all learn a little something from that.
David's family is the perfect example of an immigrants that came to America to begin a better life and were successful. Many would say he had the perfect childhood but that is the whole point of David's story. He was dealing with an illness that he could not even imagine never mind ask for help with and at the same time he began to realize that he felt differently than was considered normal about other boys. The confusion of realizing he was gay in a time when that was considered a moral flaw was hard for him considering he had a mother who he dubbed a bloodhound for Jesus. So even surrounded as he was by loving support from his family, his mental illness and secrets caught him in an undertow of anguish that would follow him for most of his life until being correctly diagnosed helped him fight his inner demons and finding the right person to love helped him conquer his fears.
David Leite is not saying he's perfect or cured. What you will find in here is the story of a young man who was vulnerable and weak and searched for answers, stumbling from one idea to another until he found it at last. This book is a look at the depths that some have to struggle out of and a hope for those who are lost on their own paths. David is a guiding light to learn to accept who you are and not be afraid to ask for help. This is a book about growing into your own identity no matter what. It is at the very end a book about hope and we could all learn a little something from that.
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