A review by abrswf
Bettyville: A Memoir by George Hodgman

3.0

I wanted to like this book much more, because if ever an author needed the hug of reader adoration, it is this one. But I found it a choppy, difficult book to read, with missing context and odd juxtapositioning of events. I also didn't find much of the author's humor funny. Most of all, I wanted to deck everyone in his narrow minded, homophobic hometown. And finally I wanted to know how Betty herself ended -- the book stopped with her in the midst of a serious health threat. Basically this memoir needed more content and less amusing little accounts of disconnected events, because the underlying story of a gay man growing up and returning to a deeply conservative and intolerant environment is a compelling and often heart wrenching one.