Reviews

Since I Laid My Burden Down by Brontez Purnell

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connorgirvan's review

4.0

3.5 / 5 stars

Again, Purnell is such an easy read I flew through this book. Fun story about a young black man returning home following a death in the family and navigating how his lifestyle fits in with his families religion.

Enjoyable read and will still buy more Purnell even if it's just for a fun easy read.

tawny_lekytt's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

mateusjobim's review

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challenging funny lighthearted reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

starwitness's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

asher_allaire's review

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2.0

Non spoiler review- I get it, and actually really liked most of it for its rawness and honesty, but one specific part was handled so poorly that, for me, it ruined the whole book.

I could not get past how they handled the final relationship, it really made me feel sick.
It wasn't because of descriptiveness, it was about how nonchalantly it was played and how they gave it no weight or resolution. Like I walked away feeling so disappointed, the insight was almost there but instead it just put the problem in front of us like "well that's just the way it is." I don't feel sympathy or understanding or insight at that point, it just loses me.
I've also seen a lot of queer books treat this topic too nonchalantly, like a fact of life, and a part of gay culture which I'm just so sick of. Gay people are more likely to be traumatized, childhood trauma leads to abusive behavior, but it's just not portrayed as abuse so much as an inevitability, which to me is just absurd and extremely insensitive. This book gave it slightly more nuance than I've seen in the past but still not nearly enough.
It doesn't need to be cut because it's a very real thing that happens, and something that should be talked about, but a simple acknowledgement of how horrible it was would have been SOMETHING. He's 33 and doesn't seem to even take a second to consider it might be wrong and continues like it's no big deal even after being confronted about it, like what? He didn't seem to lose all sense of right and wrong from trauma, like he knows enough to condemn the people who did it to him. I don't know it just didn't work for me.

Content Warnings

staticdisplay's review

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4.0

the writing is certainly evocative; DeShawn reads very much as a real and fully realized person, and we're just catching a few moments of a life that has been lived across decades and will continue into the future without this audience. I wanted a sense of closure or some sense of future happiness for DeShawn, which this book doesn't even try to give. we see much of what went into shaping who he is in the moment we meet him (struggling with depression, functioning despite heavy substance use, uncertain whether he would even want commitment but also unsatisfied with the relationships that he does have, abused and/or abandoned by almost all the men in his life, reflecting as an adult on how racism affected his childhood in ways that he couldn't comprehend or name as a child). I think the ending was hopeful. there are a lot of things we endure that we shouldn't have to that we can never go back and undo or fix, and there's a moment where DeShawn's mother suggests understanding and forgiveness for a wrong (not in those words exactly), which may not be the answer for everyone or the answer that someone needs, but it is something. I think the separate context I brought to my reading of this certainly affected me reading it more as terribly sad than picking up on the humor.