Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Boys of Alabama

Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Boys of Alabama by Genevieve Hudson

27 reviews

anarchist_al's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Was not prepared for the amount of graphic descriptions of self harm and suicidal ideation. The main characters were interesting, and the magical realism element was a very cool idea but it fizzled out for me. The book felt like it was building up to something big and then it just sort of ended with a weird retelling of Matthew Shepard’s death. This book was about kids dealing with homophobia, but the majority of the book felt like the homophobic characters just spewing their beliefs. Even the main queer character voiced homophobic ideas about himself and other characters. This could have been something really great—the concept was all there—but it was mostly just triggering. It felt like something a homophobe protesting a pride event would say, given enough time to speak freely.

Content Warnings

endymionshawk's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book felt messy and hasty. While it was interesting to read from a very different perspective (the self-hating jock who actually loves the beauty of football), it didn’t feel believable.

That Max bought into Christian homophobia of Alabama felt completely off for the character that he’d been built up to be. Or rather, since there wasn’t much character building, the character who I assumed he must have been from the details of his background—living in a liberal, secular, society with loving parents.

The themes in this story (reconciling belief systems, being part of a community, life/death, etc all felt so slap dash and half-hearted, especially given then ending. Nothing seemed closed. Yes, the ending has an open-ended bit stylistically and that’s fine. But there seems to be no conclusion for any of the themes or character building. It’s all just…..flat. Fizzled out.

Content Warnings

allybee's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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grebtak's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

2.25

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librarianmage's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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sarahcherie's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. I went in expecting a lot of critique on the culture of the South, beyond this idea of "rat magic" and calling the German family "Nazis", both of which felt cheap in comparison to the things that could actually be said about the South's actions both spiritually and interpersonally. I think I would have preferred this book without the magical element, because I feel that the magic in play kind of cheapens the effect. For example,

Spoiler

Lorne's death at the end was not made more impactful by Max's inability to resurrect him, but could have been more impactful as a true critique of the religious zealotry and homophobia of the South, and should have been expanded upon.

The ending was not a true ending, in my opinion, and it felt as though the author did not know how to continue the story, so they decided to simply end it instead. The side characters were fairly indistinguishable to me, and the writing style at times came across as very slow and laborious to get through. I had very high hopes for this based off the synopsis, as many elements seemed to be something I would relate to, but perhaps my familiarity with the things being critiqued in this book contributed to my distaste for it, and someone who is an outsider to the religious culture of the South might find this more intriguing.

Content Warnings