A review by abbie_
Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir by Brian Broome

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.
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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.
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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”.’
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Highly recommend, especially the audio!
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