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

I'm gay. It took me 5 decades to accept it. In the process, I lost my family. This book was too real for me at times - what might have been my fate had I traveled a different path than I did. It tells the tale of a young gay man when he was 17-19 years old. The author hails from the Ozarks. Bible Belt area. His family is very religious, fundamentalist Baptists. The father, owned and ran a generational cotton gin business, then had an interest in a car dealership, where the boy worked, until he hears a calling from God. His dad decides to become an ordained Baptist minister. What I'm trying to say is conditions, even in the early 2000, were not optimal for this gay son/young man.Garrard, the author, has a girlfriend in HS. She's from his church and everyone approves including the parents. Being gay (and I know this from experience) the last thing he wants is an intimate relationship with her. When the girl starts to make the moves sexually........he backs off and ends it. This is right before college, which the parents are paying for.We're told that the Garrard was same sex attracted from an early age with his first "crush" being a male teacher. As many gay boys/men seem to be, he longs to be normal, straight or "not gay", not different. At college he tried to shy away from gay related activities but deep down he has desires, fantasies, etc. He's a normal gay young man. Garrard befriends another boy who takes him to a Pentecostal church. The relationship is just budding when this "friend" literally rapes him. No consensual sex, no foreplay - rape. To make it all the worse, the rapist "outs" him to his parents. Garrand is traumatized doubly over, his parents beside themselves given their beliefs to learn their only child, their son is gay.The rest for the book covers "Love in Action" an offshoot of "Exodus International" a now debunked and disreputable organization and their theory(s) that gays can be "cured" of their same sex attraction. No F-ing way can this be done. I know from personal experience. You are what you are for whatever reason: DNA, life experiences, chromosomes, mothers pregnancy, whatever. My belief is God made me this way for whatever reason. Why? I hope to be able to ask Him some day.The strain on this young mans life was enormous. His father threatened to yank his only child's/son's college and home away from him. Everything for this young man was at stake. I won't go into details of the therapy.....but it's depressing and, from my perspective, outrageous among other things I could say.Bottom line, no happy ending but there was some light at the end of the tunnel. When pushed against the wall at one therapy session Garrard has had enough, starts walking and never looks back. Gets his phone and calls his one and only ally in this sordid story: his mother. Garrard finishes college. Semi reconciles with his family......dad? Not so much. There's still love there however. What is finished right now or at the time of the book's writing anyway is that Garrard is done with God, done with religion - any religion.I'm glad I read the book. I learned quite about about one man's struggle with being outed and his own personal battle complete with reparative therapy. I was also glad to be finished with it because it hit too close to home for me - made me anxious, upset and depressed.Bottom line, I'd recommend this book highly, especially if your gay, know someone who is or support gay rights and the fact that we are just people, who happen, through no fault of our own, to be attracted to the same sex.

I randomly found the movie on Netflix and loved it. This is a good book, but a very rare case where the film was better. I enjoyed the tension between Jay and the narrator that wasn’t present in the movie, and the assault scene in the book was very powerful, but there was a little too much scripture and church in the book. As a southern Baptist, liberty university gay…maybe it just hit too close to home. It is a little niche in that respect. But definitely watch the movie!

I will be the first to admit that Garrard Conley is a fantastic writer who does a wonderful job of setting the scenes in this work. However, I would also like to say that I have read dozens of memoirs by Holocaust survivors, the children of rapists and drug dealers, and people who have been kidnapped and tortured for years (such as Jaycee Dugard's memoir), and this is probably the least optimistic one that I have ever read.Conley has endured some horrible experiences that he describes in heartbreaking detail throughout this book, but his insights feel lacking at times. Conley is extremely adept at describing the nature and intensity of his pain, but fails to put his experience together, connecting it to his current self and adult worldview. Throughout the book, he rejects offers of help and support from individuals from his family doctors to his two closest friends at college, and seems determined to believe that the entire world has abandoned him. Garrard primarily focuses on how deeply he was traumatized by this therapy and his parents' decision to enroll in it, even though he agreed to the therapy and his mother removed him from the program out of concern when he was still on step one of twelve.The gist of Conley's memoir seems to be that his very short time in ex-gay conversion therapy has erased him, perhaps in ways that can't be repaired. As another reviewer remarked, it would probably be more interesting to read Conley's reflections on the experience a few decades from now, as it seems that he has not yet been able to fully process or move past the experience in any respect.Despite all that, Conley is a fantastic writer with obvious talent, and his story is, without question, worth telling. However, I think the book would have benefitted from some time and distance to give the author a clearer perspective on the long-term effects of the experience, and how he has rebuilt his life following his trauma.

muy bueno

It is a precious experience for any LGBT that went through an oppressive religious experience. Just read it!

A gut wrenching true tale of the “slaughter of innocence” through an outdated evangelical dogma which insanely feels individuals can change their natural sexuality through a cruel and inhuman process called conversion therapy. The overriding emotion that crawls off these pages is one of extreme sadness for both the writer and those similarly affected by this monstrous treatment which has frequently led to the permenant ruination of lives and an increase in suicide rates in the LGBT community.

One of these books that is able to trigger strong emotions.I thank the author for opening up and writing this memoir, for being so honest, even though it must have been incredibly difficult and painful.I am sure I will read this book again at some point.

J'ai très bien reçu le produit, en état.