All Boys Aren't Blue

by

Duration: 5 hours 12 minutes

English language

Published June 2, 2021 by Penguin Random House Children's UK.

ISBN:
978-0-241-53111-2
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4 stars (1 review)

This powerful YA memoir-manifesto follows journalist and LGBTQ+ activist George M. Johnson as they explore their childhood, adolescence, and college years, growing up under the duality of being black and queer.

From memories of getting their teeth kicked out by bullies at age five to their loving relationship with their grandmother, to their first sexual experience, the stories wrestle with triumph and tragedy and cover topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, inequality, consent, and Black joy.

5 editions

reviewed All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

spoilt by middle

4 stars

Really great from the get-go, but sagging several chapters in. The blithe affluence becomes grating, especially as Johnson repeatedly presents the showering of children with trendy consumer goods, televisions, video game consoles, amusement-park– and hotel–filled vacations, resented summer camps, ongoing sports team expenses, college costs, and other eye-popping luxuries as the epitome of Black familial love. Lauding a sibling for not being awful, and raiding private moments from the life of a deceased transfeminine cousin — after somewhat shunning her in life, forcing her to be refigured as inspiration porn for publication — complete the spoiling of a memoir that is otherwise imbued with transformative potential well beyond the bland story it relates.