Great introduction, and a really wonderful stepping point into a fun narrative. The writing is dynamic and engaging, and the anecdotes are funny and understandable. The interweaving of family relationships, cultural expectations, and queerness was very well done, and made for a good narrative.

Thought provoking: a collection of essays that some were hard to digest and others were completely wonderful.

I really had to sit with this one after to figure out how I felt about it. Reading it over several days, I feel like there's so much here that's just scratching the surface. Points are brushed past, important moments signifying everything, but it's all just surface level. The depth tries to be here, but it can never find itself in the fog of personality. That isn't to say this series of essays isn't good, it's fantastic and the way Ortile writes is so fitting of someone who has taken their time and sat down to stew in what they actually choose to write.

This makes things, at times, seem almost too overthought, though. It's a careful balancing act, going along with what he's said the entire book; the model memoir, not revealing too much or too little. It's honest, from the heart, but analytically honest. Crafted to reveal while also hiding everything. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it shows that there's thought here, but I know people who are always searching for that "tell all memoir" and I don't feel as though this fits that bill.

Personally, though, I enjoyed it. Looking into a queer perspective on race and immigration is something that we don't see enough of. The idea of the model minority is taken to heart throughout, and it's something that is going to take untangling over time. All in all, a series of essays that's worth reading, and worth loving.

CW: mentions and references to J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter; sexual assault, rape, racial slurs, mass shooting

This was a really interesting essay collection, different than what I expected, but in a very good way. I anticipated a lot of the book to be about relationships and marriage, but it was so much more. Ortile talks candidly about immigration, race, and family from a Filipino perspective; I appreciated his insight as I have primarily read about these topics from a Black or Latinx perspective. Definitely recommend this one on audio!

I was very excited to read this book but I hadn't been able to get around to it due to some personal stuff, As much as I want to read it now, I am not in the right headspace to do so, so I am DNF'ing the book.
Thanks to the publisher for the copy.

DNF

For some reason, I hadn't realized this book was a collection of essays about the author's life experiences, but that's my own fault 😅

Sadly, this book format and writing style just wasn't for me. It was more of a history of past relationships, and I felt like a lot of information was superfluous and just made the essays drag on.

Also, what I usually enjoy in memoirs is when the author analyzes their life experiences (ex : how a certain event could've impacted their following decisions or development), but I felt like this book was merely stating facts and events, without delving any deeper.

I wish I could've persevered some more, but after a month I haven't made any progress with this book. This memoir just wasn't for me, but I'm convinced it can appeal to a lot of people out there.

Concepts like imperialism, colonialism, homophobia, xenophobia, and the model minority myth feel like grandiose ideas that only people with fancy humanities degrees from prestigious universities can discuss. Ortile breathes humanity into these -isms in his essay collection “The Groom Will Keep His Name.” Ortile shows the reader how a colonial mentality can affect romantic, personal, familial, and professional relationships.

Ortile writes about his desire for acceptance in America by dreaming of marrying a white man and taking his name for an easier life. As if a union with someone undeniably American by anyone standards could by proxy make us also undeniably American. We see this occur with so many other model minorities. Ortile GOES there with all of these topics by effortlessly weaving anecdotes, history, and cultural analysis.

Right now, there is a specific discourse about decolonization: learn about precolonial history, question colonial structures, and call out white supremacy. These are all vital steps to radical love (self and all its other forms). Ortile’s personal anecdotes encourage the reader to confront our own personal histories with institutional violence: how we weaponize it against ourselves and to others.

I cried from cover to cover. This book demanded a level of self-examination and healing that I thought I already accomplished. Every Filipinx/e must get their hands on this book because there are so many conversations our community needs to have.

“Even at my most polished, respectable, and eloquent, worthy of basic citizenship, I am held at arm’s length in the framework of white supremacy, commended and marginalized at once, patronized for how beautifully I speak a language that their empire has beaten into my tongue.”

“Because no matter what we do, there is an America that will never count us among their lot, never believe we are like them. Because this is true. We are no just like them. We have paid too much in the currency of our bodies, our emotional labor and fucksweat, to persist in appealing to an America that tells us to retreat.”

One of my favorite reads of the year! The Groom Will Keep His Name is series of essays about race, queerness, colonialism, sex, and power—and it’s a fantastic and impressive debut!⁣⁣
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Matt’s voice is witty and fun with that kinda serious New Yorker flair that makes Grindr hookups feel just as important as dismantling the model minority myth. ⁣⁣
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While so much of this book resonates with me like the parts exploring Filipino identity. It was the explorations into the effects of whiteness and my own complacency to it that really made me [head explosion emoji].⁣⁣
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It made me realize how I often complain about being fetishized as an Asian by white men and how I’ve been actually fetishizing the white men too. It made me realize just how much power I give to whiteness and how much I actually colonize my own experience all by myself. But then it made me realize how that’s because society has groomed me to do so. ⁣⁣
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His voice is so strong and his perspective is so unique and these pages really burst with so much intelligence, browness, queerness, reverence, and love—especially the parts for his mother.

From Shelf Awareness for Readers: In "Barong Tagalog," the first of 10 essays, Matt Ortile sets the tone for what is to follow in the sharp and insightful The Groom Will Keep His Name. Ortile uses his experience as a "young queer and brown immigrant" as a lens through which to view the world. He picks apart the lasting legacy of colonization and assimilation, the role of the "model minority" and what it means to be persecuted because of your differences. "For me," he writes, "part of decolonizing has been to hold myself more accountable, to think more critically about my actions and experiences as a gay Filipino immigrant; my writing is part of that project."

The Groom Will Keep His Name is an invitation to join Ortile in that critical thinking. What can we infer about belonging if a gay man uses the social networking app Grindr to hook up with men, based not on their appearance but their apartments? What does a scholarship student owe his alma mater, and vice versa? What does it mean to be a citizen of two countries, when neither seems particularly welcoming? Ortile never asks his readers to answer these questions directly, nor does he answer them for anyone but himself. Instead, he weaves together a series of personal stories and reflections--some funny, some sad, some scandalous, some touching. Readers interested in topics of race, identity and relationships (and how the three are inherently related) will enjoy every essay in Ortile's polished collection. Those reading with a critical mind will perhaps find themselves thinking differently about their own experiences, and how they relate to the larger world. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Discover: A whip-smart essay collection explores the intersection of race, sexuality and identity through the lens of one queer immigrant's personal history.

CW: Graphic Sexual Content, Racism, Colonialism,
Genre: Memoir/ Essays, Asian American, Immigrant, LGBTQIA+, Racism

I don't even know where to begin with this book. It's part essay, part memoir, part manifesto. At points, I found myself weeping at being SEEN. Ortile expertly calls out his own biases, his own issues with colonialism and internalized homophobia. As someone of indigenous Mexican descent, I find it too easy to fall in line with colonized thinking, make my self small for the comfort of others. The shame and hassle to be better than expressed by Ortile were a familiar garment, worn at the request of others. Ortile writes with ease and humor; The Groom Will Keep his Name flows naturally.

I couldn't go a few pages without highlighting passage after passage. I want everyone to read this book: white, Asian, immigrant, American, queer, straight, everyone.

I loved reading Ortile's essays. They all dealt in some way with the question of belonging: what does it mean to truly belong to a group, a community, a culture; how does one manufacture belonging or allow it to grow naturally; how is all belonging conditional for people with multiple "minority" labels?
These essays were extremely intelligent and explained concepts well and with nuance, without making the reader feel like they were reading a sociology or history textbook. Ortile shifts seamlessly from colonialism and analysis of the colonial mindset to feminism to the queer experience to explicit details about past sexual encounters and relationships.
Both illuminating and hilarious, Ortile's words will stick with me for a long time. Go pick up his essays right now!

I thoroughly enjoyed this group of essays. Ortile's insights into a world in which I knew little was well worth reading. He's got a lot of personal introspection as well as a look to the Filipino history, living in America and hidden racism.

I absolutely LOVED this memoir. Full of heart and humor, I was so invested in each chapter. I cannot wait to share my joy of this book with others.

Love this book! It was a nice read that really does evoke every emotion. I found it to be a compelling read and want to read more by Matt Ortile

I don't know why it took me longer to read this than my last memoir. Maybe I'm just not really a non-fiction reader.

I enjoyed this and how I could relate to it being myself an immigrant looking for a better life. While I could relate to a bit, I couldn't to many more and I found it very interesting to see all the ways Matt and his mother faced the new world they decided to inhabit.

I really liked how everything was explained with a little humour that compensated the heavier parts. The author managed to keep myself glued to the pages. I think this memoir should be read by everyone to understand a bit more the life of an immigrant in the US and all the obstacles they have to face. Wether you relate to it or not, this is a very interesting read.

In this essay collection, Matt Ortile explores his experience as a gay Filipino immigrant in America. From the model minority myth to racism within the LGBT community, Ortile's writing is insightful, funny, and heartfelt. His narrative voice is so strong, and it made reading this book feel like time spent with a smart, entertaining friend. This collection makes it clear that the personal is political and the political is personal; Ortile is able to examine his own experiences with a wide lens. I really look forward to reading more from him in the future!

I got this essay collection from Net Galley and I was eager to read it. Matt Ortile is a gay, Filipino-American living in New York City who attended Vassar and worked in major media. This is his first collection of essays and they are raw and honest. The essays get stronger with the strongest was the last, eponymous essay. These pieces are layered referring to events and characters creating story that more like a web. Ortile tackles themes such as sex and sexuality, immigration and identity, otherness and loneliness. I really loved this collection. I wasn’t drawn in right away but I’m really glad I continued. I am looking forward to whatever he writes next. ★★★★★ ◊ eBook ◊ Nonfiction - Essay, Memoir ◊ provided by #NetGalley ◊ Published by Bold Type Press on June 2, 2020. ◾︎

The Groom Will Keep His Name is an incredible set of essays detailing the experiences and life of Matt Ortile, as a young gay Filipino immigrant in NYC. The book tells stories from Matt's life about family (chosen and biological), relationships, and self-love.

I heavily enjoyed the book and read it faster than I do most non-fiction. Ortile's writing style allowed for quick consumption of his essays and a desire to quickly begin the next one. The book had a great balance of anecdotal stories from the author's life, witty remarks on life as a millennial in NYC, and serious conversations about our society. Overall the book is a fun read that approaches serious conversations like colonialism's role in beauty standards, marriage's problematic history, and the model minority myth through personal anecdotes and his internal dialogue. I would suggest this book to friends.

This was a poignant portrayal of the trials and tribulations of several intersected identities (in Matt Ortile's case, being an immigrant, Filipino-American, and gay) in this country that promises "The American Dream". He gives such raw and honest accounts of being met with a lot of social and cultural challenges and adversities throughout the years, while chasing "the dream". I felt at times this read very scholarly and educational. I felt as though I was back in college reading a sociology textbook, which I enjoyed because I learned a lot throughout this collection of essays. Yet, other sections read as if he were just casually speaking, recanting his experiences and it was a breeze to follow along to. I enjoyed both tones.

Overall, I really enjoyed this and I loved the intersectionalism and the dissection of the experiences within his intersected identities in the U.S. I felt that this was eye opening and very telling of our society and the standards we are held to and the even higher and often times unachievable standards minorities are held to.

Matt Ortile’s debut is an education. A series of essays about race, colonialism, queerness, family, the American dream, and millennialism, The Groom Will Keep His Name is witty and raw. This book is incredibly self-aware. Matt lays himself bare, reckoning with the elitism he so long has desired and how he came to his values. He does not shy away from detailing his relationships and all the beauty, pain, and sex that came with them. Having read Matt’s essays before, I knew it would be well-written and read conversationally. But I was not expecting to be blown away by well-researched historical analysis The Groom Will Keep His Name offers in each essay. I truly learned so much about both Matt’s and Filipino history. The Groom Will Keep His Name is a beautiful addition to the growing list of excellent memoirs by young queer authors.