I'll be honest it took me a while to fully get into All Boys Aren't Blue. This isn't necessarily the fault of the memoir, (it's clearly targeted a younger demographic than me) but its didactic nature made it harder to connect to. As someone who has engaged with writing about queerness, race, intersectionality, consent and other adjacent topics as a teaching tool the book didn't have much new to inform me about.

However, I cannot deny George M. Johnson's gift for storytelling. The parts of the memoir that hooked me the most deeply were the personal anecdotes Johnson told about his life growing up and his family. Johnson has a deep love for the community that reared him and I felt it powerfully throughout the memoir. He also navigates messy and complicated nature of growing up as a queer black boy with grace and wisdom.

While All Boys Aren't Blue wasn't for me I'm sure it will resonate for the teens it was written for and I hope to read more of Johnson's writing in the future.