Kitten Memoir Series
Laurel Shea is a therapist, writer, and speaker exploring religion, sexuality, body image, and autonomy. Previously known and publicly recognized as Lolly Weed, Laurel continues to share her evolving story of identity, deconstruction, and reclamation.
Through personal narrative, the Kitten Memoir Series examines purity culture, sexual shame, body image, faith transition, and the quiet choices that shaped her life.
This series traces her evolution of being raised in devout Mormon culture, trying to do everything “right”, marrying a gay man, and eventually finding herself untethered from her own voice and desires.The series moves through innocence, sexuality, queerness, heartbreak, anger, and reclamation.
Future installments include:
Rainbow Kitten
Unrequited Kitten
Exposed Kitten
Rage Kitten
Repressed Kitten
Book One | A Short Memoir
On the way home from a family vacation, Lolly’s gay husband, Josh, asks a question she never wanted to consider; would it be okay if they never had sex again?
Lolly and Josh are faithful and devout Mormons who did everything “right.” They waited. They prayed. They followed every rule about chastity. And even though Josh is gay, they made efforts to have sex regularly for the first twelve years of marriage. But things have changed recently.
In Repressed Kitten, Lolly struggles to buy a vibrator in order to survive her future in a sexless marriage. This purchase brings up its own challenges, as it stirs up past memories and the shame of still wanting something she can’t have.
Blending raw personal narrative with the stories of other religious couples who waited for marriage, Repressed Kitten explores the disorienting leap from abstinence to assumed sexual expectations, the silence around consent in purity culture, the shame that follows both desire and pornography, and the confusion that can bloom inside “righteous” marriages.
Repressed Kitten is the short story that opens the installment of the Kitten Memoir Series.
Good Kitten
Good Kitten, the second book in the Kitten Memoir Series, follows the experiences of the author in her younger years as she tries to make sense of religion, the mechanics of sex, and the rules of chastity; all of which form an uncomfortable backdrop as she discovers her own yearnings.
Growing up in a religion where goodness is measured in modesty and obedience, she absorbs the belief that her body is under constant judgement. God determines the rules of conduct for her body, while men and boys judge its appearance. Can she meet both the standards of God and men? Either way, her body is not her own.
Rainbow Kitten
Rainbow Kitten is a coming-of-age story detailing the push and pull of hormones, righteousness, and the desperate desire to be enough.
Lolly carries the story of her gay grandfather, who died of AIDS. She has a quiet inheritance shaped by religion and shame. Years later, her childhood friend, Josh, confides in her that he is gay. Together, they try to make sense of straight and gay sexuality inside a faith that has rules for everything, especially bodies and sex.
Lolly thinks she’s too chubby. Josh thinks he’s too gay. Both feel rejected and bewildered by the average straight teenage boy. Both wonder if they are the problem.
While Lolly longs to be touched by the boys who won’t reach for her, she fends off the hands of men she doesn’t want. Shame and desire twist together. Jealousy cracks her open. And in the middle of trying to be righteous, restrained, and wanted, she discovers feelings she has spent years trying to outrun.
Rainbow Kitten is book three in the Kitten Memoir Series.
Upcoming Releases
Devoted Kitten - Scheduled for June 2026
ADHD Kitten
Unrequited Kitten
Exposed Kitten
Rage Kitten
Laurel’s memoir writing reflects her personal experience and cultural observations.
It is separate from her therapy practice and does not constitute clinical advice.