Book Review: Boy Erased - A Difficult Read Especially If You're Gay

It took sometime for me to finish Garrard Conley's Boy Erased. It was just too close to home that I couldn't bear continuing it and at some point, I didn't want to read anymore.

Well, it is a personal memoir of Mr. Conley when he had to undergo gay conversion therapy as a young college student.

I did finish it when I learned to detach myself from what was happening to him in the book.

If this book were set in Brunei, Iran, Uganda, Russia or any other country with strict anti-gay legislation, it would've been easier to read.

But it is set in small-town Arkansas, right in the middle of the Bible-belt of America - where often, the Christian right is at its most fundamentalist - making it no different from other fundamentalist groups of other organized religions.

Poor Garrard, whose father was a pastor, was forced to undergo gay conversion therapy and what he had to endure, I do not wish on any other human being.

It is just sick, revolting and violates the most basic human right. To be who you are.

I am just glad that that movement has since been discredited because it had driven so many young men and women to suicide, self-loathing and insanity.

I still have to see the movie version, directed by Joel Edgerton, who also directed Loving. This guy doesn't shy from difficult subjects!

Australian A-list actors Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman are the parents, Lucas Hedges plays Garrard. Troye Sivan is also here. Maybe he plays JT, I am not sure.

This book is for people with strong stomachs because what they did to him is just cruel. It's like making fun of autistic children, or humiliating dyslexics or poking fun at children with Down syndrome.

It's putting down a whole group of minority people just because of some stupid interpretation of the Bible.

I don't think Jesus ever preached about hate or subjecting other other human beings with humiliation and self-loathing, just because they are different.

Book Review: Chris Kenry's 'Confessions of a Casanova

I feel lucky if I read one or two gay fiction books a year. It's just that there aren't too many sold here - and usually - the movie version comes first - before the book becomes popular (Call Me By Your Name and Love Simon).

I would rather prefer reading the book first then see what Hollywood has done about it.

Anyhow Chris Kenry's Confessions of a Casanova details very well how a goodlooking gay man would act - at least the sexually active type.

I like the way the main character has no issues about sex or making out or hooking up which I encounter so much nowadays among young gay millennials.

The story is set in Denver, Colorado (the second time I meet this setting this year - Cold Pursuit the movie - was the first one), but it flies abroad to Denmark - of all places - as one of the main characters is Danish.

The main character is definitely sluttier than me in my real life - and it's amazing he just gets boys and tosses them after getting bored with them.

I've seen that happen and as in real life and as in fiction - it leads to a sad existence - an emptiness I guess once the thrill of chasing the boy wears off.

In a way, the book is as masculine toxic as you can get. Yeah, gay people can have toxic masculinity as well.

Who wants a faggotty acting boyfriend anyway - everyone loves their bf to be butch - or move like a straight man - so definitely the irony of that is not lost on the author.

This is a book though of redemption and true love which the main character eventually finds after being whacked on the head by everyone else.

It's the classic -'why are you looking around for true love when he's been right in front of you all your life' - type of story.

Book Review: Reading an Anita Shreve book is like visiting New England

One of the few remaining things in my bucket list - is to drive through New England, starting from Maine, passing through New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts - all the way down to Connecticut.

My brother though says it's a bad idea and I asked why - he said 'You're not white. They'll shoot you there."

Anyhow, my love affair with New England started a long long time ago - loving it's quaint towns and the marked changing of the seasons and it has continued to this day.

Anita Shreve is one writer who sets most of her novels in New England - and this one, Sea Glass - she puts in New Hampshire.

I think this is the fourth novel of hers that I've read - Weight of Water, Resistance, The Pilot's Wife - and once again, she writes women characters who are strong and have a mind of their own.

What I thought was just another love story turns into a bit of a political thriller as the lives of the main characters are turned upside down due to a catastrophic economic slowdown.

Vivian, is the character I love most here - because she resembles me. Tough, caring, intuitive and a realist. She also has money so it's good that she helps some of the characters in the book.

I also love McDermott and he reminds me of me sometimes - kinda slow in love, a little naive - but sure about his feelings.

The confluence of real life events - the mill strikes - and the violent clashes between the police and the striking workers - remind me of the days when the Philippines was still in economic doldrums.

The clash of the have's and the have-nots reach tragic consequences and the new bonds that form afterwards show you that life moves on even after so much death and strife.

Book Review: Kate Holden's In My Skin Doesn't Hold Back

My brother has very interesting taste in nonfiction books and he was the one who bought this in one of our trips abroad.

In My Skin by Kate Holden is not an easy book to read - in fact, it is a bit bewildering to read because it is an honest memoir about the author's descent to hell and back.

Hell being her drug-addicted self (heroin) and selling her body first on the streets, and then in a brothel in Melbourne, Australia, just so she can feed her drug habit.

What makes it difficult to read is accepting all the 'wrong' choices the author makes in her life so much so that she puts herself in a situation where her life has become that of a cockroach.

She's not poor. She finished a university degree - in Australia! She was never abused as a child - she had loving parents and a sister who looked up to her.

How did it all go wrong?

It was her drug use that got the best of her - and those were the parts that alternately made me roll up my eyes and yet I plodded on reading it - because there is something about another human being on a free fall of her choice that gives us the scare.

If she can fall down on her life just like that - we can too, if we fail to get a grip.

I haven't read a book (fiction or nonfiction) that has put a 'positive' spin on prostitution.

Well, Pretty Woman, the movie was a different kind of hooker movie - but we are familiar with the sad reality of what prostitutes really go through.

It is not a career any woman (or man) would want to aspire for! Yet in this memoir, the author achingly writes about what the trade has taught her - and the reader can alternate between disgust and fascination.

The fantasy of being sexy and desirable and sleeping with all the gorgeous men looks great in the fantasy world - but in reality - as a means to feed one's drug habit - it would look quite pitiful and sordid.

But Holden writes none of that. This is what happened to her and she tells it like it is.

At one point, I really thought she wouldn't get out of her drug habit, but she did - and she has this book to prove it.