andyroddickjr's Full Review: Leroy Aarons - Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Comin...
"A Prayer for Bobby." A book about a young gay man and his suicide and how his mother comes to term with his homosexuality. It is an inspiring book. It is a book full of hope. It gives hope to anyone that thinks homophobics cannot be changed.
When Bobby's mother finds out he is gay, she tells him that god will save him. She tells him that god will correct him and that he would not go to hell his homosexuals do because he would be cured. She takes him to the preacher of her church and she does everything she could to help her son. Little did she know she wasn't helping him at all. So he grows up in a home where is not accepted for who he is. He is constantly filled with the idea that homosexuals are god's mistake and they are going to hell and they are evil. He hears this from his mother and his church and from all angles. He grows up with so much self hatred. He moves out of his house when he is 18 and he started to keep a journal a few years before. From reading the journal, you are saddened at how much he hates himself. He hates the way he is not accepted and they way society hates him and doesn't understand why he is the way he is. When he is 20 years old all this sadness and hatred were enough to cause him to jump of a bridge right into an oncoming 18 wheeler.
Through his death, his mother is completely transformed. ALthough it is not instantaneous, it happens. At first she is confused. She can't understand why god didn't cure her son. Why he didn't save him. She fights with the idea that her church says her son is in hell. She doesn't want to believe that, but that is all she heard growing up. Gay people go to hell. She struggles with her religion and finally stops going to her long time church. She slowly starts to get into Gay rights Activism. She go's around the country telling Bobby's story. She goes on countless TV shows and tells it. She established a scholarship in her son's name. She establishes a hotline for gay teens to call if they are depressed. She organizes meeting for parents of gay teens to give them information and let them talk and find out what they need to know and how they can be supportive. Within 10 years she had become one of the most influential activist in the gay rights movement. It is amazing that out of this tragic event, she came out stronger and made a difference.
This is a wonderful book, that is a most for any gay teen or anyone who loves to read books that when something so bad happens, often something so good comes out.
Bobby Griffith, at the age of 15, realized that he was gay and in conflict with his religious upbringing. Through Bobby s journal entries and his moth...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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