All Boys Aren’t Blue - George M. Johnson - ★★★★

AUTHOR: George M. Johnson

GENRE: Memoir

PUBLICATION DATE: April 28, 2020

RATING: 4 stars.

Just look at the title and the cover. It is impossible to resist the challenge it throws at the reader. The book just screams: Pick me up if you dare. The moment I saw the cover and title, I knew I'd read this book.

George M. Johnson is a New York-based writer-cum-activist. There are two things that go against him in general public opinion: he is black, and he is gay. This book narrates the struggles he has faced all through his life, the trauma, the repercussions, the challenges, and the opportunities.

As the tagline suggests, the book isn't just a memoir but also a manifesto. The author confesses his deepest, darkest fears and secrets and also declares how he overcame them. In many of the chapters, he includes advice to young people facing the same issues on how to deal with this identity crisis.

So, how does it fare against the expectations it creates?

The book is powerful and impactful, there is absolutely no doubt about that. The straightforward approach of the author comes out very strongly. He seems to have viewed this book as a cathartic opportunity to purge himself of all the anxiety and pain he has kept bottled up in his early years. However, while dwelling on his sexual memories, he goes into a vivid, almost-erotic delineation of his experiences, both consensual and otherwise. Was he just trying to demonstrate the rawness of his pain by being so explicit? I honestly don't know. But it didn't click with me. I must say, the author does warn about this in the introduction itself, where he says that the topic might seem too heavy for teens but he encountered all the abuse as a teen. So he has his valid reasons for including them.

There is a lot of bravery in the book, but there is a lot of cockiness too. He almost seems to boast about his achievements in many places. Memoirs that proclaim "Look at me, see how great I am" are big turn-offs for me.

For the correct target audience i.e. American gay black young adults, the book will probably be a must-read and much more identifiable. But a book such as this mustn't aim at a limited set of readers but should speak to society as a whole. In this day and age, it is extremely important for everyone to understand the challenges faced by the LGBTQIA+ community. That, however, doesn't happen in this case and the writing seems a bit shortsighted and restricted in its approach.

Furthermore, I think the author should have written this book either as a memoir or as a manifesto. In the quest to do both, he ends up with a jumbled-up result. It is not a bad read, it is definitely not an easy read, but it could have been so much better had the author kept his focus on only one item on his agenda.

The audiobook is narrated by the author himself and he does a pretty good job.

My rating: 4.75 for the intention, 3.5 for the execution.

Trigger warnings: Rape, physical abuse, sexual abuse, N word, some homophobic slurs, graphic descriptions of sex.