Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Punch Me Up to the Gods

There is a category of memoir I've discovered in recent years that have completely challenged my understanding of the genre, books that stretched and pushed the genre and what it could or should be. Books like Hunger by Roxane Gay, Heavy by Kiese Laymon, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado and Know My Name by Chanel Miller. Memoirs which so brilliantly and bravely bear the souls of the writers in a way that I could not have ever imagined. Memoirs that changed me in some fundamental way, just for having had the privilege of experiencing them.

I consider Punch Me Up to the Gods in that category. Brian Broome wrote the hell out of this book. This memoir plays with style and form, discarding traditional expectations of linearity, and tells the story of Brian's life as a gay boy and man in rural Ohio (and later, Pennsylvania). Brian's difficult family life, poverty, struggles with substance abuse and deep reflections on black life made for a beautiful, tender, sad, and sometimes joyful read. I loved it.

Highly recommend.

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sara_m_martins's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

"we learn that white boys are people and Asian boys are exotic and Hispanic boys are luxurious and Black boys are for sex."

Punch Me Up to the Gods is a raw, powerful memoir that explores the ideals of Black masculinity, and that intersection with the queer identity, and what it is to be a queer Black man in the USA. It is brutal, powerful and superbly honest.
The memoir comes as a collection of essays about moments throughout Brian Broome's life, glavanized (and organized for us) through a shared bus trip between narrator and a small Black boy named Tuan. I found this really interesting, and this starting point made me reflect and approach the essays in such a different way.
This book talks of racism, homophobia, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, toxic masculinity, misogyny, family, addiction/alcoholism. With humour and a great writing style (felt almost poetic at points), one feels saddened but still wants to keep reading.
I really appreciate the realness and unsanitized depictions. This is seen in other themes too, but Brian talks about being queer while not being a "good queer" - ashamed, denial, hidding, wishing it away; cowardice sometimes feels forbidden to queer stories.

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abbie_'s review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Free audiobook provided by Libro.fm!

2021 has been the year of the audiobook memoir for me 🙌 There really is nothing like having the author narrate their own experiences to you! Brian Broome’s memoir of growing up Black and gay in Ohio is a heart-stomper. Broome doesn’t hold anything back, doesn’t try to sweep the less-than-savoury episodes in his life under the rug. He bares all with the reader, from struggling to find his place (seemingly too Black for the gay community and too gay for the Black community in Ohio), to hook-up encounters, to seeking escape in drink and drugs. It’s all there.

I particularly liked his commentary on masculinity, and the way Black boys have the ‘ideals’ of this masculinity projected onto them every day from a young age. Throughout the memoir, Broome recounts a (sometimes long-winded) episode where he’s watching a young Black boy and his father on a bus. Watching this episode play out gives Broome room to reflect on the ways masculinity was enforced in his own life, and the letter to the young boy at the end was beautiful.

A little taster of the writing so you can see how moving a memoir this is:

‘This being a man, to the exclusion of all other things. I remember how my own tears were seen as an affront. I remember my father looking at me as if I were leaking gasoline and about to set the whole concept of Black manhood on fire. “Stop crying. Be a man”.’

Highly recommend, especially the audio!

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alertnerd's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad

4.5

TW: child abuse, domestic violence, drug addiction, alcoholism, racism, racial slurs, homophobia, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, bullying

In his memoir, Punch Me Up to the Gods, Brian Broome takes us through a disjointed, nonlinear trip through his life. He recounts the kids who used to hurl racist and homophobic abuse at him as a kid, his constant striving for his parents’ love and affection, and his tumultuous adulthood filled with drugs, sex, and alcohol.

All of these stories seem to come back to the same message: society is failing our Black boys. White people force them to grow up too soon, Black culture forces them into rigid, outdated and harmful roles, and the world expects too much out of them.

A lot of Broome’s memories are painful and hard to read, but also so important. The intersectionality of Black queerness is often ignored.

Thanks to BookishFirst and HMH for this ARC!

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