Boy Erased

A courageous memoir, but deeply flawed. The jumbled structure, which in Part I was a back and forth, and in Part II started to move in circles, made the book seem both longer than necessary and unnecessarily confusing. And his writing style, so overly descriptive, so much useless prose obscuring the words that actually matter.

Most memoirs are rich in events and scenes, this one took place in the author's head more than anywhere else. He ruminates constantly on his relationship with God, and the clash between his upbringing and the way he felt as a young adult. While sometimes this was moving, and actually described feelings I could identify with, at other times it felt repetitive and overwrought. I wish the whole book had been written more in the plain style of the epilogue.

The movie (which wasn't perfect either) was actually much better than the book, I felt, with all these jumbled events (diary entries?) coalesced into a narrative that was easier to follow.

My favorite part was perhaps the passages where he described coming to terms with himself, loving himself. Worried that if he were to change, he would lose the parts of himself he actually realized he loved. Not wanting ex-gay therapy to “erase” his personality. That was such a powerful message.

Thanks to the author for his courage in writing down and trying to make sense of such painful memories. I hope he was able to eventually work through them with his parents.