I had a hard time getting into this book. I think in large part it's because my expectations going in were pretty wrong. I had mostly heard this book spoken about with conversion therapy so I expected it to focus on that. And there definitely is an emphasis on conversion therapy and the trauma it causes (both in general and Conley specifically), but he was an outpatient there for like eight days.

Most of the book focused instead on his religion and struggles with growing up in a very homophobic church as well as the rape he experienced as a freshman in college. I personally found the religion grating. I don't think it's a bad thing to focus on by any means, but I probably wouldn't have picked this book up had I known that was the focus instead of the conversion therapy. I just don't enjoy reading about religion like that.

It also felt like the book didn't have a whole lot of closure. By the end, I knew what his relationship was like with his faith. He spoke pretty bluntly about how he felt now. But I couldn't tell you much about his parents or anyone else from his past. Or honestly how he's living now or how he reconciled his internalized homophobia and came to accept himself. The book sort of just stopped and I felt like I had more questions.

My last negative thought was the writing style. It felt overwritten to me, and like he spent a lot of time on unnecessarily flowery descriptions of things that didn't matter in the slightest. It felt a bit ridiculous to hear him go on about random details that added nothing.

I dunno. Most of my thoughts on this book are negative, but I didn't actually feel that negatively toward it. It was fine, if a bit boring, and I struggled to feel connected. If you're more interested in reading about someone's relationship with religious extremism and how their faith was impacted, you might enjoy this better than me. But it isn't a story that will stay with me.