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kgmittty's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
“… you can lose part of yourself to save the rest.”
Edgar Gomez’s writing is precise and beautiful and cuts straight to the heart of what so many of us have feared and loved growing up queer in a world that hates queerness.
Following him through snapshots of his life as he tries simultaneously to hide and embrace who he is so familiar and heartbreaking.
He reckons with the inherent contradictions of being effeminate and gay, how masculinity is covered by gay men while also being a standard they can never truly live up to in the eyes of others. His nature is something he tries to camouflage but is constantly met with the reality that it’s not enough — people can somehow see though it and hate him for it, this thing that he is and cannot control and still loves in so many ways.
“Everything I’d been taught about surviving was wrong. I wasn’t surviving before. I was existing.”
Hiding is not living. Surviving is one thing, but shoving down parts of yourself to appease others kills a part of you. Gomez spends this memoir recounting the steps he took to come to that realization in a way o could see parts of myself reflected in, even though there is so much that separates our experiences.
He speaks about his identity as a gay Latino in a way that tries to hold all the contradictions they carry. His passages about Pulse and the aftermath of the massacre there are especially gutting, but so so tender. They’re something I think everyone should read.
This book is about survival, about learning to face yourself in a broken mirror. Sometimes what you are given is not enough, but each step you take makes the path a little more clear for the ones behind you. And sometimes that’s all you can do and that is enough.
There’s a lot more I could say about this because I loved every page of it. But for now I’ll leave off with Gomez’s final words:
“What you do when you’re not afraid anymore is the same thing you do when you are: Keep Going.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty and Animal death
Moderate: Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, and Transphobia
suzyreadsbooks's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Mass/school shootings