100 Boyfriends | 
"I fucked him doggy-style because it‘s the easiest way for two strangers to cum. He was facedown pretending that I was someone else. I was watching him facedown pretending that he was someone else. He was facedown pretending that he was someone else. I was watching him facedown pretending I was someone else.
It was over soon."
-"Meandering (part two)"
"He had to kill all the boys. This was his job. A boy plant‘s pollen can travel up to half a mile away and, with one drop of it, the whole crop would get seeded."
-"Early Retirement"
"Sex is just light points on a grid, stars in the Milky Way, but really, the ether holding them all together is the waiting. Just sitting around, waiting in some feces-scented bathroom hoping to get fucked."
-"Letter of Resignation"
"He is equal parts chubby and fit—he‘s built like a tenth-grade football player and his body is a constant source of inspiration for me. He looks like a human sausage packed tightly in respectable H&M off-the-rack wear, and all I can think about is getting inside his asshole."
-"Letter of Resignation"
"He came in like three minutes and then showed me how to play Magic: The Gathering as promised, and though I never fucked him again I still to this day meet him every other Wednesday to play the game."
-"Boyfriend #666 / The Satanist"
"One boyfriend was this white top who had a big-ass dick, and thank god he was hung because he was dumb as fuck. He didn‘t know what calculus was. He had a deep-ass country accent and was telling us a story about how he had woken up in a jail cell covered in feces one night and he almost went to jail for longer but luckily his mother loaned him $12,000 and it all got cleared up."
-"Boyfriend #40 / The Gentleman"
"He was way taller than me so I fit neatly into him after the squirting epic semen battle we would have."
-"Boyfriend 2.0 / The Firefighter"
bailedI‘m bailing at around 50%. There were some vignettes/stories that worked for me, but I am finding myself losing interest in all the dysfunction without a through-plot. The writing is good so I may come back to this or read some of the author‘s other work at some point.
The author is a gay Black man who tells the explicit history of his dating and sex life. Idk how to describe this book besides like deranged? and honest? funny? but also like what the hell? but a job well done giving a platform to his voice and experiences.
pickI‘m at a loss in how to describe this. It‘s maybe short stories and maybe a novel and filled with a LOT of M/M sex (pretty much constant). It‘s laugh out loud funny in places and I enjoyed reading it. I‘m glad TOB put it on their longlist and brought it to my attention.
I love when authors get real in their author photos and more than likely look like themselves rather than glamazons. But I‘m wondering if Brontez took the casual author photo idea a little too far? 😂
pickHoly $&@*!!! What did I just read? This slim book is written by a Black, gay, author who writes about all manners of the ex boyfriend. From drug use, to unprotected sex, the dysfunction, to cheating, to the loneliness, the dysfunction, the yearning, the ghosts we all carry around, the dysfunction, the self sabotage. VERY MESSY stuff. Then there were times where I laughed out loud. Did I mention dysfunction? Parnell can write and I ate it up. Pick!
pickDeranged, delightful, dangerous. Beautiful, bold. Strange, sensitive. Among the boyfriends in 100 Boyfriends we‘ll find all of the above. The narrator, too, is all of these things. And funny. And serious. A Venn diagram of my life and the narrator‘s would have only a modest overlap yet there is something here I connected to in a way that feels essential and deep. Well-crafted collection of stories of modern, gritty, gay life.
#netgalley
Woke up today to two notices - one from Goodreads that I am a Giveaway Winner and one from Netgalley that I‘ve been approved for an ARC. Both notices for the same book! 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell.
Would have bought a couple scratchers if I had known it was my day to win things! First time I‘ve gotten a Goodreads giveaway too.
#blackauthors
#lgbtq
pickIntimate, explicit, chaotic, messy, heartbreaking, full of self-destructive behavior and at times quite funny.
I loved the structure, a collection of mostly brief encounters and stories, a loose feeling to the prose, a messiness to it all. Definitely not for everyone, but I could sense the sadness and heartbreak beneath so many of the tales. Excellent raw writing, that I totally just went with....
#pop21 #previouschallengeprompt #numberinthetitle
