Review by Booklist Review
Following the success of High-Risk Homosexual (2022), this collection of essays explores Gomez' life growing up in Florida as a gay Latinx millennial. Gomez is sweet and conversational, like a friend readers have known for life: nostalgic, playful, and caring. Gomez writes about growing up with his single mother and the sacrifices she made to support him and his brother, Hector, on her own. Her stress took a physical toll and caused serious health issues, which forced the author to confront American morality myths about poverty and hard work. Gomez shares what it was like to grow up alongside the dawn of influencers and how filming makeup tutorials allowed for creative identity expression while he still lived at home. The essays follow the author from youth into young adulthood and the experience of seeing his first book published, which propelled his relationship with his mother into a new chapter. It is beautiful to get to know the life of this artist, whose endearing world will remain with readers long after they've finished the book.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gomez follows up High-Risk Homosexual with a triumphant and bracing account of growing up queer, poor, and Nicaraguan in Florida. In 10 dazzling essays that return again and again to his fear that his mother would find out he's gay and disown him, Gomez details his immigrant family's desperate attempts to keep the American dream from slipping out of their grasp. Gomez's mother was a Nicaraguan refugee who tried to keep Gomez and his brother afloat by working as a barista at an airport Starbucks after their addict father abandoned them. With each attempt the family made to overcome debt and improve their lives, they were thwarted by cruel twists of fate--a home break-in, a friend's betrayal that got Gomez expelled from high school, his mom's stress-induced stroke--that set them back even further. Though Gomez graduated from college and earned an MFA, his economic struggles continued, forcing him to take menial jobs and turn occasional tricks while he wrote High-Risk Homosexual. Even as he offers a pitiless, self-aware view of life on the margins, Gomez remains funny, candid, and unfailingly stylish. This delivers a welcome jolt to the coming-of-age memoir formula. Agent: Danielle Bukowski, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The coming-of-age of a queer Latinx Floridian, part two. "I was the person who got expelled from high school, who mopped up lube at the sex club, and some-how I'd stumbled into this alternate universe where I was also the person who lived with his boyfriend in New York (albeit in a fake room), had a book soon-to-be out, and an inbox full of journalists asking me about my 'process.'" In a follow-up to his much-awarded debut memoir of growing up gay between Florida and Nicaragua,High-Risk Homosexual, Gomez gives a book-length answer to the question of his process. Though his 30-something years may seem few for two memoirs, this time he tells the story largely in terms of work: a meticulously evoked and darkly comic series of jobs in bars, restaurants, retail (readers may find the Flip Flop Shop taking up a permanent, coconut-scented place in their minds), and, briefly, sex work. Through it all, he clung ferociously to the idea that he was a writer. "'People likeyou get to make art too!' I'd hype myself up in the shower." His fierce love for his mother, a beloved barista at the airport Starbucks, again shines through the pages, and in a section that will mean a lot to aspiring memoirists, he recalls how the joy of his first publication was laced with terror that she would read the book, whose evolution he hid from her. He continues to contend with the legacy of the Pulse nightclub massacre, with homophobia, and with racism, but he also comes to a heartening conclusion: "In fact, it was aprivilege to be gay.…It was because of my queerness that I was able to see how the paths set out for me weren't enough, pushing me to leave home in search of more." This portrait of the artist as a young flip-flop salesman will inspire, amuse, and empower its audience. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
