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julies_reading 's review for:
The Black Flamingo
by Dean Atta
3.5
In this semi-autobiographical novel-in-verse, we follow Michael, a young mixed gay boy from childhood to his early college years as he learns more about himself, his identities, and how he wants to express them, particularly through the world of drag.
This book was very short so my review will be as well! Just a heads-up, I listened to this on audio. It's difficult to rate something that is a) semi-autobiographical, b) poetry since that's up to interpretation, and c) covers identities that you do not share. I generally thought that this was a very important story and I totally appreciate that people such as Dean Atta are now being able to share their stories with the world and not only encouraging readers to be themselves but paving the way for more authors such as him to be published. A lot of the things that were said were important to discuss, such as internalized homophobia, gender expression, and subtle racism (the quote "Your ignorance may be innocent, but your racism is real" comes to mind) among many others and I'm so glad this is getting into the hands of so many young readers. I personally wasn't a fan of his verse; since I listened to this, it just seemed like prose for the most part (I mean there are multiple text conversations in here) and I wouldn't have called it in-verse had I not known that beforehand, but poetry is so to-each-their-own. I also thought that this would have benefitted from a little more length. This covers several years and it felt like we never stayed anywhere for long. I would have loved to have had more time with Michael and his experiences to become more invested. That said, I loved the conversations in here, so I would have liked it if they were given more time to be explored.
In this semi-autobiographical novel-in-verse, we follow Michael, a young mixed gay boy from childhood to his early college years as he learns more about himself, his identities, and how he wants to express them, particularly through the world of drag.
This book was very short so my review will be as well! Just a heads-up, I listened to this on audio. It's difficult to rate something that is a) semi-autobiographical, b) poetry since that's up to interpretation, and c) covers identities that you do not share. I generally thought that this was a very important story and I totally appreciate that people such as Dean Atta are now being able to share their stories with the world and not only encouraging readers to be themselves but paving the way for more authors such as him to be published. A lot of the things that were said were important to discuss, such as internalized homophobia, gender expression, and subtle racism (the quote "Your ignorance may be innocent, but your racism is real" comes to mind) among many others and I'm so glad this is getting into the hands of so many young readers. I personally wasn't a fan of his verse; since I listened to this, it just seemed like prose for the most part (I mean there are multiple text conversations in here) and I wouldn't have called it in-verse had I not known that beforehand, but poetry is so to-each-their-own. I also thought that this would have benefitted from a little more length. This covers several years and it felt like we never stayed anywhere for long. I would have loved to have had more time with Michael and his experiences to become more invested. That said, I loved the conversations in here, so I would have liked it if they were given more time to be explored.