Boy Erased : : a Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Conley, Garrard	4-week checkout	Due 03-17-2024

"The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to "cure" him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness. By confronting his buried past and the burden of a life lived in shadow, Garrard traces the complex relationships among family, faith, and community. At times heart-breaking, at times triumphant, this memoir is a testament to love that survives despite all odds."--Publisher's website.

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Left a lot to be desired submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on July 14, 2017, 11:03pm Meh. This felt like it should have been a better and more interesting read than it was. It's the memoir of a conservative pastor's gay son who underwent conversion therapy to "fix" his homosexuality. It did talk about that, which was the most fascinating part of the book. But it also jumped back and forth to various other times in Conley's life in confusing and ineffective ways. Additionally, the writing wasn't all that clear or impressive (book club decided that he would have done better with a ghost writer, and that it felt much like a school writing assignment). And while I accept that the author's life is private, and he may not have wanted to tell us about what happened to him after he rejected the conversion therapy, it really felt like the end of the therapy was the *beginning* of the real story. I want to know what happens to his life now that he has gone through this process and said no to it.

Overall, an interesting idea, but the execution left a lot to be desired.