Here For It or How To Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
R. Eric Thomas didn’t know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went – whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative Black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city – he found himself on the outside looking in.
In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents’ house was an anomalous bright spot, and the Eden-like school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election for Elle online, and the seismic changes that came thereafter. Ultimately, Thomas seeks the answer to these ever more relevant questions: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Thomas finds the answers to these questions by reenvisioning what “normal” means and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story.
Here for It will resonate deeply and joyfully with everyone who has ever felt pushed to the margins, struggled with self-acceptance, or wished to shine more brightly in a dark world. Stay here for it – the future may surprise you.
As I was searching for my next read, I decided I needed something with humor….something nonfiction…and something not so serious.
While this book tackles some very serious issues like racism, oppression, and homophobia, the author finds a way to add a humorous spin on it ALL.
I know…sounds impossible, right?
But he does it yall.
OMGGGG…R.Eric Thomas is EVERYTHING.
He is hilarious while at the same time serious…he talks about things that are trivial and also important.
He had me CRACKING UP CONSTANTLY.
I love listening to autobiographies because then you can truly hear and feel the author’s personality shine thru….you hear their story EXACTLY as they want you to hear it.
And he wants you to be LAUGHING, yall!
Some things that got me cackling:
-He mentions he bought an amazing chair from a thrift store but totally won’t sit on it because he 1000 percent believes it is haunted
-“A Christmas tree without a theme is just a busy bush”
-“I was about to marry a preacher and become Mrs. God or whatever.”
-He has whole entire paragraphs explaining how he is NOT post apocalypse material. (I mean…SAME, GIRL, SAME!) “I don’t want to go first, I just want to go early…like when they are doing nice memorial tributes on TV.”
-“When it all goes south, I want to be REMEMBERED not RELIED ON.”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
So many loud cackles from me, yall. SO MANY.
I adore the way he explains EVERYTHING…legit hilarious storyteller, which is the BEST kind in my opinion.
Like I mentioned above, he speaks about some pretty serious topics and not so light moments of his life…but he finds a way to find humor in it all, which is NOT an easy feat. I appreciate and adore his honesty and vulnerability as well as his sense of humor.
As someone who left the Christian faith in recent years, it was fascinating to me to hear his own faith story (and his husband’s–who is a pastor) and how he has remained true to his Christianity even after so much trauma associated with it.
That is also a not easy feat.
I loved this book…it was exactly what I needed.
And I totally wish I could be friends with him IRL.
Let’s go get coffee, R.Eric Thomas!