100 Boyfriends

Expansive, tender and grim. A quick read that stays with you for a long time

I was introduced to Brontez Purnell’s work by my dear friend Michelle, and I’m so glad she turned me on to this penis-chasing, pen-wielding, punk rock powerhouse. In 100 Boyfriends, I thoroughly enjoyed Purnell’s anecdotes of sex with a dorky D & D Satanist whose condoms were even a tribute to the dark lord, work life that includes furtive wanks at his office desk, and domestic life with a whiny borderline white boy roommate whose heartbreak histrionics entail psych wards and hilarious demands that someone call the local news for being “held against [his] will” — though ultimately, what resonated most for me are the moments of tenderness to be found in this compendium of hook-ups and high-octane faggotry.

The writing was casual and witty. Many of the stories were so short that it was hard for me to engage. They seemed like random thoughts that were put together and then ended abruptly. I almost stopped reading after the first collection of short "boyfriend" stories but I'm glad I finished. The longer stories were better, in general, and some were excellent.

This collection of short stories is the first I’ve ever read by Purnell, and if everything his prose is consistently as transgressive and uniquely meandering as this, I’m all in.It took 3 stories max for me to know that I would love this book. 100 Boyfriends straight up exposes the sometimes tender, sometimes messy reality of the black gay man experience. It’s raunchy, it’s provocative, it’s vulnerable, jaded, sexy.I’m obsessed.Content Warnings: graphic sex, heavy swearing, cheating, drug use, alcoholism, just generally messy

I was impressed with the author's stories, whether autobiographical or fictional or a combination thereof. His and/or his book persona's experiences were definitely more varied and daring than anything I experienced in the San Francisco Bay Area of the 1990s, but then again the whole healthcare situation is very different now too. (We just had to be more careful if we wanted to survive in the long term.) I like that it made me rethink the relationship dynamics of interracial couples. If nothing else, you will feel like you are not having enough sex!

The book is a series of vignettes some of which are hysterically funny. Other stories are poignant and dramatic. The short stories are bristling with honesty of certain life styles that exist but may not be to everyone’s taste - just go with it and take a walk on the wild side!

Read it in one day, I laughed I cried and felt everything in between. Emotionally relatable in moments. Would recommend this to anyone who knows themselves on a darker level. Again I loved this book!

How a paragraph can represent a short story and give you all the emotions of a novel. 100 minutes of a looks at life , where we are are still looking for love ( or some of us)

There is no narrative. It’s very repetitive. Gets boring. Nothing happens. Just short stories of hook ups and none of these are even exciting.What a letdown.

Loved this book ! It was amazing ! Devoured the whole thing in a day !

Right off the bat, you're thrown into a bunch of stories with gay sex, alcohol and emotionally contained men. At first, I thought it was a random assortment that ranged from hilarious to heartbreaking to saying _guuuurl you better get outta there_. But as the book goes on, the stories start to stand together in three movements that get you through three different stances about relationships. It took me a while to warm up to it. But I ended up liking it a lot. The short story format allows going back to it without having to remember much.It has an interesting way to show you characters going through discomfort/defeat/decadence with a mix of detachment and resignation that makes it universal even if you've never left your lover's bed at 3 am because his boyfriend was coming back to town. To me, it speaks volumes about the loneliness inbred in western gay men's culture. The quenching thirst for random sexual encounters, substance abuse, transactional sex instead of intimacy. To me, it felt like a window that works like a mirror. With this I don't mean to say all gay men behave like this, but it's definitely something present in the landscape of the community that requires some talking about.