#BlackLoveBooks Challenge Day 12: LGBTQ: a book written by or about LGBTQ community

I can’t say much about I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé. It’s a recent purchase and still on my TBR list. I kept hearing good things about it, so I had to get it. With such an interesting title, I know the book is bound to be humorous. It’s compared to Phoebe Johnson’s You Can’t Touch My Hair, and Arceneaux is compared to David Sedaris. I’m sold.

From the back of the book and some editorial reviews:

A timely collection of alternatively hysterical and soul-searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity.

“There are stories that simply demand to be told and Michael Arceneaux’s is one such story. In I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé, Arceneaux writes from his life as a black gay man with an uncanny strength of conviction and such fine wit. The essays collected here reveal Arceneaux at his finest, as he grapples with the very things that shape our lives – faith, family, and finding a way into the world he wants to be a part of. Whether he is writing about coming to terms with his father’s rage or his complicated relationship to Christianity or his trepidations about dating and finding human connection, Arceneaux makes keen observations and sculpts beauty from the ugly things a lesser writer would shy away from…The critical thinking, from beginning to end, is outstanding. I Can’t Date Jesus is a must-read collection from a rising, unforgettable voice.”—Roxane Gay

“In this collection, Michael Arceneaux is as vulnerable as he is hilarious, sharp as he is shady, thoughtful as he is THOT-ty. With wit, heart, and keen self-awareness, he allows us to see him in totality and forces us to feel our way through his journey toward contentment, wholeness and reconciliation with faith and family as an unapologetically black, queer and Southern man. I know our patron saint Beyoncé would be proud!”—Janet Mock, New York Times bestselling author of Redefining Realness and Surpassing Certainty

“I Can’t Date Jesus is both a Genesis and a Revelation. As he turns his brilliant, cynical, and critical eye on his own selfhood with sustained attention, Michael Arceneaux uncovers each layer of humanity and hilarity with the same unflinching authenticity he has brought to politics and popular culture for a decade. Like his god, Beyoncé, Michael has a ‘Negro, Creole, and Texas Bama’ alchemy that will leave you weak with recognition, regret, and joy. I Can’t Date Jesus reveals who Michael is and reveals who we are; in doing this, it elevates itself from personal memoir to definitive text of why it matters to be black, to be gay, to be young, and to be human in this moment.” – Melissa Harris-Perry

“THIS BOOK IS MY BIBLE.”— Samantha Irby

“Michael’s voice is so specific and so relatable—reading his book felt like reading letters from a friend I’ve known all my life. He isn’t afraid to say the things the rest of us are too scared to say out loud. He’s a rebel with hot sauce in his bag. It’s hard not to smile and body roll while reading every chapter.”— Lena Waithe

This post corresponds with the Instagram #BlackLoveBooks Challenge by @booksandbrunchbookclub