A review by staticdisplay
Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell

4.0

the writing is certainly evocative; DeShawn reads very much as a real and fully realized person, and we're just catching a few moments of a life that has been lived across decades and will continue into the future without this audience. I wanted a sense of closure or some sense of future happiness for DeShawn, which this book doesn't even try to give. we see much of what went into shaping who he is in the moment we meet him (struggling with depression, functioning despite heavy substance use, uncertain whether he would even want commitment but also unsatisfied with the relationships that he does have, abused and/or abandoned by almost all the men in his life, reflecting as an adult on how racism affected his childhood in ways that he couldn't comprehend or name as a child). I think the ending was hopeful. there are a lot of things we endure that we shouldn't have to that we can never go back and undo or fix, and there's a moment where DeShawn's mother suggests understanding and forgiveness for a wrong (not in those words exactly), which may not be the answer for everyone or the answer that someone needs, but it is something. I think the separate context I brought to my reading of this certainly affected me reading it more as terribly sad than picking up on the humor.