Just based on the title, I knew I had to have this book lol. But yea it’s really good. All about Brontez Purnell’s boyfriends, lovers, and randos he’s dealt with over the years. The writing is great and fun. He’s very honest and has a dry wit. The chapters themselves are short and often end abruptly, which maybe does make sense for the material. These aren’t 100 long-term relationships. They aren’t even all boyfriends–many are guys who have boyfriends of their own or, like I said, complete strangers. The book itself is about his life and love, tho, not them.

I can relate to that style, and I also like the way Purnell doesn’t explain or apologize for the way he meets men or deals with them. I’ve written about meeting men off the street before and the (often white) response is “what??” Or they may comment that it seems odd that the character (me) seems so smart otherwise, that it didn’t makes sense that she’d (I’d) jump into a car with someone to smoke some weed. I hated trying to explain how or why people run around like that. To me it just seems pretty regular to a certain extent.

Best line: “I could easily think of countless people I wanted to murder, sure, but countless people in any given algorithm that I would go out of my way to fuck? Fuck no, no way.”

-Rachel Wagner 2021

My books: Jacob’s Hip: Poems & FEM: New Millennium Beauty & Fashion & Abandonment Issues: Alive in New Jersey & Back Like I Never Left: Dating as a Single Mother

My bookstore: Ten Dollar Books