Saeed Jones writes like someone older than his 33 years. He writes like someone who has seen some things, which he has. And he writes about those things with a beauty and rawness that had me sobbing like a baby for the last section of his new memoir. Mr. Jones does not pull any punches. He writes about his life in vivid detail, leaving nothing to the imagination. His experiences give you an inside glimpse of what it is like to grow up as a gay black man in America. How fraught that life can be when navigating his sexuality in a society that thinks he doesn't deserve to exist, much less be happy.

As I read Mr. Jones's novel, I thought about all of the black men I know who had to take this same journey. How do they manage their relationships with their families, their religious beliefs, or partners? How do they deal with white men who treat them as fantasy and nothing else? Most of all, I thought about how they dealt with the fear of being themselves in our current climate.

I would definitely recommend this book, especially to readers who want to be more open minded and learn about the black experience from a gay man's perspective. But I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a damn good book. Saeed Jones is already known for his poetry, but his memoir is a gorgeous account of a life that is still being transformed.

I've been an avid follower of Saeed Jones on social media and enjoy him on AM2DM, and was eagerly awaiting his memoir. To say it does not disappoint is an understatement. Lyrical, poetic, brutal, yet tender, no doubt HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES will go down as one of the very best memoirs of the year. I already cannot wait for Jones's next book.

This book knocked the wind out of me. It is a beautiful memoir encompassing the consequences of a prejudiced society. It also deals with emotions and fears that most of us are too afraid to let out. It was raw and heartbreaking.

I honestly don't know what to say about this beautifully written, moving memoir. Saeed Jones shares memories of his childhood and formative years that made my heart just hurt for him. From his earliest memory of being called a "fag" to his feelings of shame and perceived rejection from his grandmother he is brutally honest about his fear and anger in his life. His realization in high school that "being black can get you killed. Being gay can get you killed. Being a black gay boy is a death wish," just made me want to weep for our country and any young people in it that are still struggling with their identity.

It brings me great pain and joy to know Saeed Jones’ How We Fight For Our Lives will be set upon us all. Pain for the collective loss and sorrow gay black boys have suffered, and joy in knowing that it is stories like these that will set us free.

It’s been a month since I read Saeed Jones’ How We Fight For Our Lives, and I fumbled so long to put words to its visceral glamour. When I first heard of its arrival over the winter, I needed it immediately. To imagine the amount of blood, sweat, and tears Saeed must’ve sacrificed to saturate these pages is beyond me. What emerges from that offering is a story of a gay boy coming into the blackness of his body, its starkest desires and demands, and an anthem of unsung single black mothers who must raise their boys to be their own saviors before it’s too late.

Front to back, no other book has echoed so much of my own experience as a gay black boy like this. It took no effort at all to read Saeed’s story with an empathetic heart because I have been living this story in real time. There were so many instances I caught myself saying, “I know what that feels like too” and “Yes. Yes, that was me! That’s STILL me!”

"You never forget your first 'faggot.' Because the memory, in its way, makes you. It becomes a spine for the body of anxieties and insecurities that will follow, something to hang all that meat on. Before you were just scrawny; now you're scrawny because you're a faggot. Before you were just bookish; now you're bookish because you're a faggot.

Soon, bullies won't even have to say the word. Nor will friends, as they start to sit at different lunch tables without explanation. There will already be a voice in your head whispering 'faggot' for them."

I was pricked with my first N-word assault by another white boy whose vestige still haunts me in the faces of white men wanting to be friends, lovers, or bringers of harm. I watched my mother’s smile dissolve in the face of financial and spiritual uncertainty, and the tenacity with which she raged at every whisper of my sexuality and my little brother’s autism. I, too, have submitted to the dehumanizing fetishes of white men that can drive a vulnerable black boy to hate himself and others like him. I know the sting of falling for straight men capable of nothing more than breaking our hearts if not our whole being. And above all, I still tussle with the prodigious fear of a lonely, loveless life because of who I was born to be.

This is a gorgeous memoir about growing up gay and black in the south, about knowing that the odds are against you and trying to carve a space for yourself in a world where “being a black gay boy is a death wish.”

For Saeed Jones, forging his identity was about more than just coming out, it was about living authentically in all the many ways—and about the painful journey of finding out what that even meant.

Jones’ life takes him from Texas, where as a young teenager he discovered his sexuality, to Kentucky where he went to college and embraced his budding sense of self, to New York City where he currently resides as a poet. The raw and candid content of his memories is conveyed in powerful, lyrical prose that leave a searing impression.

While the primary focus is Jone’s own coming of age, this striking memoir also serves as a touching tribute to his mother, who raised him by herself.