Book Blog #2: Review of Butterfly Boy

I read Butterfly Boy by Rigoberto Gonzalez; a book about Gonzalez's life and his becoming the man he is today. The book has a few interesting qualities that I would like to discuss.

The first thing I found interesting was how Gonzalez tied in all of his feminine acts as a child to him wanting to be like his mother. He admired her so much and was in love with everything she did for him. He wanted to walk like her and have her same mannerisms. I feel like him trying to be like his mom was the beginning of his homosexuality. He never came out and said it, but one could infer that from his writing.

Secondly, I understand that this is an autobiography, however a lot of things in the book seemed almost unbelievable to me. Gonzalez would talk about locking eyes with someone he had never talked to before, then a few paragraphs later they would be having hot and steamy sex. On a roof. In the rain. While that seems really exciting, it seemed a little embellished to me. However, this didn't take away from the book. I actually thought it added a little bit of thrill to the story.

Finally, the thing that I recognized the most was his style of writing. Butterfly Boy is written in both Spanish and English. Usually when books have a different language integrated in, the foreign words are italicized. However, this wasn't the case for this book. At first it confused me, but then I realized that he might have done this to show that neither of the languages or cultures are foreign to him. If this was the message he was trying to achieve, I like the way he decided to convey it.

Overall, Butterfly Boy was a very good read. I enjoyed Gonzalez