Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

10 reviews

dragon_s_hoard's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Homophobia, Incest, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Drug use, Terminal illness, Racism, Chronic illness, Slavery, Alcohol, Racial slurs, Bullying, and Grief

ankita1996's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing and Racial slurs

Moderate: Bullying, Grief, Death, and Sexual content

Minor: Alcohol, Homophobia, Chronic illness, Incest, Addiction, and Drug use

bessadams's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Outing, Racism, Chronic illness, Cursing, Homophobia, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Death of parent, and Rape

peachani's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

A necessary book full of lessons and hope for Black queer youth. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Homophobia, Bullying, and Violence

Moderate: Death, Racism, Cancer, Cultural appropriation, Sexual content, Grief, and Mental illness

Minor: Alcohol, Cursing, Deadnaming, Blood, Chronic illness, Drug abuse, Drug use, Medical content, Outing, and Racial slurs

grboph's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

This was quite the book. George M. Johnson is an incredible person, and their story is a very important one for everyone to hear. The incredible thing about this story is that while most memoirs are about someone with a very unique or unusual story, Johnson's is very commonplace, it just has hardly ever been told before. On top of its importance to society, the book is also full of stories about Johnson's life that are heartwarming, sad, and everything in between. I'm so glad I got to experience this book, and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Homophobia, Racial slurs, and Incest

Moderate: Chronic illness, Alcohol, Drug use, Bullying, Cursing, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Medical content, Cancer, Outing, and Mental illness

Minor: Addiction and Injury/Injury detail

nassy's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

I really enjoyed this book and so thankful to have literature such as this to help support me as a 30 something black queer woman. This is a definite recommendation to all in and outside of the community. I cried, laughed, learned and so much more! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual assault, Chronic illness, Transphobia, Cancer, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Sexual content

mme_carton's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Grief, Homophobia, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Chronic illness, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, and Transphobia

Moderate: Alcohol, Cultural appropriation, Outing, and Mental illness

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

ellioteverafter's review

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad slow-paced

4.0

To deny the queer community a basic sex education as teens is to perpetuate the prevalence of those statistics.

I cannot imagine how difficult this must have been to write. Difficult, but oh-so necessary. All Boys Aren't Blue is a thought-provoking piece that put to words a lot of similar experiences to what I went through growing up queer. I adored the incredibly strong theme of family in this, and was so glad to see a perspective from someone with a family who loved and accepted him when he came out. Those stories still unfortunately rare for those in certain communities.

What stopped me from rating this higher was the section on Hope. I don't think it was at all appropriate to broadcast her deadname, especially given that she wasn't around to give consent to that. I felt fairly uncomfortable reading that section because there was quite a lot of misgendering (which I understand was how Hope was seen at the time, but that still isn't necessary) and it all came from the perspective of a cisgender man. I think many people still have a lot to learn about how to treat trans people fairly, unfortunately. That's not to say that Hope's section was disrespectful, but that it definitely could've stood to have been looked at by a few more trans people before going ahead.

Overall, I am going to be recommending this book to a lot of non-black people and a lot of queer people, too. I definitely don't think it's a piece that's above critique by any means, but it is an incredibly solid work that needs to be read by a much wider audience.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault

Moderate: Transphobia, Death, Chronic illness, Racial slurs, and Homophobia

There is graphic depiction of incestuous assault

princessgonchar's review

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

I didn't have any particular feelings in any direction towards this book. I think the stories about their life was interesting, but there were some aspects about the abstract, more theoretical big picture that I just didn't agree with. You know, small things. I appreciated it though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Bullying, Deadnaming, Homophobia, Incest, Racial slurs, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, and Transphobia

eff_reads's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

5.0

beautiful story. it tackles multiple subjects including coming out, homophobia, transphobia, queerness, Blackness, going to a private school etc. a lot of things i could relate to and others that i found really informative. i recommend the audiobook format because George M. Johnson does a great job at narrating their own story. i’m rating this a 5/5  because of the things i’ve learned and how seen i felt in this novel, not because i’m rating the authors life or their life experiences. everyone has their own and i’m so thankful they decided to share their story for Black queer children who might need to hear it. we need more Black queer stories and we need more representation for those who never had any. this book also talked about how sometimes George didn’t even have answers themselves. it was all learning and going, i liked how realistic they were about their experiences. being queer and Black is a multitude of goodness and badness. and sometimes an in between, this is not everyone’s own journey but i loved that did show what it looked like for most Black queer ppl especially in America and especially with transphobia and  homophobia within our our own communities. All Boys Aren’t Blue is a story about hope but also grief and what it means to is discover who you are for your self. it’s beautiful and something i’ll keep with me forever <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, and Transphobia

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Medical content, and Medical trauma