A review by kteliza28
All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

Really enjoyed this memoir about growing up black and queer. The first 2/3 of this book were the best: the childhood upbringing, growing into oneself and trying to understand identity, family dynamics and dealing with hate in all its forms (especially the emphasis on micro aggressions). It was actually the most informative part for me, especially the un-learning of what we’ve been taught in our history classes. This story was different to me because not everything was a struggle. At first I was so surprised that the authors family was pretty much fully supportive from the get go (some members more than others but mostly supportive). You read books like this and think everything has to be a downhill battle the whole time and how the author preserved and came out of it heroic, but it was a really nice change of pace to hear the story of someone who didn’t have it all bad but still dealt with very negative things and also still hasn’t figured everything out yet. As someone not black and not gay, reading someone’s story of sexuality and their feelings around sex in general was actually something I could connect with. I do think this book kinda loses me a little around the time the author goes to college. There were some elements of the story that played into the theme of the book but at times felt like I was just hearing a day to day recall of a pretty mundane college life. But maybe that’s the point. Again, you don’t need to struggle 100% of the time or have a drama filled life 100% of the time to write about it. This is not to detract from what the author went through. There are MANY times throughout this memoir where I was shaking my head in sadness and disgust for what he went through. But there was hope and happiness here too. 
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