...urgent, immediate, matter of fact ... His title carries an edge of social critique. To be black, gay, and American, the book suggests, is to fight for one’s life ... Like most memoirs, Jones’s is concerned with the construction of identity—with how its narrator resolves or at least reconciles himself to his own contradictions, and with the masks he wears and sets aside ... He often feels doomed and spectral, and yet his writing activates the body ... One gets the impression that Jones relates to an artist formerly known as himself ... 'Being a black gay boy is a death wish.' This fatalism, which exists in contrast to Jones’s uncommon openness and aesthetic ravening, is wrenching. The narrator’s fear and desire swirl into a power fantasy, a vision of subjugating those who would subjugate him ... How We Fight for Our Lives doesn’t belabor Jones’s learning, or his love of language, even as biographical details (he was a speech champion and a star student; he went to graduate school in creative writing) hint at what literature means to him. There is a confidence in refusing to reach for mythic analogues ... Jones’s prose, though, shines with a poet’s desire to give intellections the force of sense impressions ... How We Fight for Our Lives, the two main concerns of which are Jones’s coming of age and his mother’s death, often feels like a complicated working-through of this guilt. But there’s a way in which the book also refutes its own premise. It is a tale of self-making that gives its last pages to Jones’s mom, and spends its most beautiful language on his love for her.

Jones weaves a series of stinging, memorable vignettes into a powerful coming-of-age memoir. This intimate book, which details his experiences growing up black and gay in the American South, is a required and distinctly singular read ... Through flowing metaphors and dialogue, rich language and deeply personal family stories, we learn about Jones’ struggle for his identity—why he built a suit of invisible armor to protect himself when no one else would ... Almost every passage feels like a fresh, raw wound, ready to leave a scar ... Jones knows that accepting himself in a racist and homophobic world is an act of radical self-love, and this devastating memoir illustrates why such an act is worth the long struggle.

Extremely personal, emotionally gritty, and unabashedly honest, How We Fight for Our Lives is an outstanding memoir that somehow manages a perfect balance between love and violence, hope and hostility, transformation and resentment ... a touching, heartfelt memoir that isn't afraid to delve deep into the darkest corners of familial drama and violent, racially charged sexual encounters. How We Fight for Our Lives, much like the man who wrote it, is full of fear but also brave enough to overcome that fear with sheer will ... While there is a lot to unpack here, there is also a lot to celebrate. Jones writes with the confidence of a veteran novelist and the flare of an accomplished poet. In every event there is truth, which he chronicles and shares, but there is also the possibility of a beautiful phrase, and he always delivers ... is about tenacity and strength. It is the story of a man who lost a mother who was a force of nature and whom readers will grow to love and respect. This is an important coming-of-age story that's also a collection of tiny but significant joys. More importantly, it's a narrative that cements Jones as a new literary star — and a book that will give many an injection of hope.

... if we’d forgotten, we’re immediately reminded of the attention Jones brings to every word of every sentence of every paragraph from the beginning of his debut memoir ... The generative failure of language–here instantly recognizable and yet gorgeously specific–brings us Jones the Poet transforming into Jones the Lyric Memoirist of Youth. What subsequently follows is no simple bildungsroman, but short, lyric chapters of growing up that move–dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish–back and forward and back and forward, circling in on themselves like the Buddhist chants we witness Jones and his mother performing throughout the book ... There is so much to love in How We Fight for Our Lives, I’ve struggled to narrow down this review, which could easily just be a love letter for this book I simply couldn’t stop reading. And though the prose is seemingly effortless, one of the things most effective (and affective) in Jones’ memoir is his refusal to hide the hard work a writer of his caliber must undertake in order to succeed ... a primer in how to keep kicking, in how to stay afloat. I am left challenged by it, but also rising to meet its challenge. It is one son’s letter to his mother, but also the world. Thank god we get to be part of that world with Saeed Jones’ writing in it. I pray this memoir isn’t his last.

Saeed Jones' blunt and candid memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives, violence surges and recedes like a chronic ache ... The chapters in Part Three are, by turns, titillating and sad, but Jones' presentation is always straightforward and unflinching ... Jones tends to avoid sentimentality and nostalgia in favor of a matter-of-fact approach, but the memoir is infused with an emotional energy that only authenticity can provide ... There are moments of devastating ugliness and moments of ecstatic joy. Readers may find themselves loving the fighters and hating that they're required to fight. In the final pages, as Jones holds hands with an unlikely dinner companion many miles from home, what remains is lovely and melancholy and, like the rest of the story, if not ideal, apt.

...a moving and bracingly honest memoir that reads like fevered poetry ... The way Jones writes about the assault might come as a surprise to his many followers on Twitter, where he is a prolific and self-described 'caustic' presence who suffers no fools. As a memoirist, though, Jones isn’t interested in score-settling ... It’s a generous and humane take, one that might strike some as politically problematic—and others as a case of Stockholm syndrome. If there’s surprisingly little blame to go around in a book with so much potential for it, there’s also a curious lack of context ... Jones’s memoir, which is structured as a series of date-stamped vignettes, exists largely separate from the culture of each time period. That decision keeps the reader in a kind of hypnotic, claustrophobic trance, where all that seems to matter is Jones’s dexterous storytelling. But sometimes I wanted more ... That’s not to say that How We Fight for Our Lives is devoid of introspection or searing cultural commentary, particularly about race and sexuality.

... gripping, deeply personal ... I finished Jones’s memoir in two sittings, unable to put the work down, the poetic prose drawing me in right from the very first paragraph ... One thing Jones also does fabulously is show readers the contrasting sides of himself ... Jones brings the reader into these intimate encounters with a stunning sense of visualization, and he reflects on those incidents with surprising clarity and self-awareness ... a lyrically beautiful work, deeply personal and honest in its storytelling. Jones does a remarkable job of drawing the reader in and showing us what it means to fight for one’s life. It’s also an important book in its centering of both queerness and Blackness and is just what we need in today’s society.

Jones' voice and sensibility are so distinct that he turns one of the oldest of literary genres inside out and upside down ... at once explicitly raunchy, mean, nuanced, loving and melancholy. It's sometimes hard to read and harder to put down. Jones' memoir effectively deep-sixes any illusions I had that it must've been a little easier in recent decades to come of age as a queer black boy in Texas ... a raw and eloquent memoir. I don't think I'm taking away from the particularity of Jones' experience when I say that Jones also speaks to how difficult it is for nearly everybody to hold onto to that vulnerable construction we call our 'selves.' Jones reminds us that an Invisible Man, illuminated only with a bare bulb, is not only unseen by others — he is barely seen by himself.

... heartbreakingly brilliant ... A luminous, clear-eyed excavation of how we learn to define ourselves, How We Fight for Our Lives is both a coming-of-age story and a rumination on love and loss ... Jones makes it clear that this is not a place for baroque lyricism; instead, the memoir is written with the straightforward, generous prose that hard confession requires. Each scene is given to the reader with a clarity and grace that commands attention ... Even in the toughest chapters, Jones leans toward a self-recrimination that is astounding. His vulnerability is not just in the truth-telling about the events or the brutal actions of others, but in showing how, in the end, it was his own actions that defined him, scared him and eventually saved him. If there is a larger indictment present in those sections, it is of the culture that has too often denied a place for a young black gay man to survive, let alone flourish ... a radiant memoir that meditates on the many ways we belong to each other and the many ways we are released.

Jones writes about the traumatic formation of his identity with a sharpness that cuts through stereotype and convention ... Jones displays a poet’s knack for the searing detail, and the pages of his memoir are full of beautiful and surprising images that buoy us through the pain and heartache and often seething rage that fuel its propulsive, precise narration ... The syntax of human connection that Jones narrates so precisely is always heavy with the threat of obliteration, an entire language of possible expressions of love and desire erased in a flash. Perhaps that’s ultimately the impulse of memoir — to leave behind a language to explain our lives, or a map of the places from which we’ve escaped ... while Jones as poet goes to the page to regain a sense of control in the chaos, he shows us in these final pages that Jones as memoirist goes to the page for release ... a memoir that rushes headlong through a collage of intensely rendered vignettes and arrives finally at a state of grace, a wisdom earned by fire ... There’s a fierce heart beating wildly and urgently through these pages, filling them with blood — in anticipation of the beautiful scar that they ultimately come to form — and whatever else we might need in order to fight for our lives.

[T]he book offers no formula for transcendence; rather, it’s a series of snapshots of how Jones has dealt with and sometimes avoided the deepest struggles of his life ... The standard tropes follow: an interaction with an adult man in a bathroom; painful rejection by Christian family members; and a sexual explosion in college that quickly devolves into near Dionysian distraction. The book in these moments is light and easy to read, going down like cool water. A poet by training, Jones’ prose is lyrical enough to provide interest beyond mere storytelling ... The memoir comes alive just as the author is forced to deal with his mother’s death. It’s here where it gets its teeth, where it goes beyond the casually lyrical and into the truly mournful, and it’s here, like in any great cello solo or resonant line from a magnificent poem, that I stop and take it in ... But it’s not until the portrayal of Jones’ mother that the book, and title, earn their salt ... it is in this unmasking most of all that the book—and the title—breathe with their own fresh and resonant life.

Because memories evolve over time, grow fuzzy or distorted, and occasionally disappear, a compelling memoir must improve upon dry facts with poetic embellishment. As such, Jones...is well-suited to write in this nebulous genre. In quick, impactful chapters, Jones recounts his experiences growing up gay and Black in the South ... Jones draws poignant parallels between two important figures, James Byrd, Jr., a Black man killed by three white men in a truck, and Matthew Shepherd, a gay man murdered by a pair of straight men ... Jones’ unabashed honesty and gift for self-aware humor will resonate with readers, especially those in search of a story that resembles their own.

Gripping chapters on the complicated relationship with his mother, and her life with a heart condition, make for moving reading ... An unforgettable memoir that pulls you in and doesn’t let go until the very last page. 

...marks the emergence of a major literary voice. A prizewinning poet, Jones...tends less toward flights of poetic fancy and more toward understated, matter-of-fact prose, all the more powerful because the style never distracts from the weight of the story ... There is a lot of subtlety in these familial relations: the son not willing to recognize the implications of his loving mother’s heart condition, the mother struggling with her son’s sexuality ... A memoir of coming to terms that’s written with masterful control of both style and material.

Poet Jones...explores sexual identity, race, and the bond between a mother and child in a powerful memoir filled with devastating moments ... Here, Jones candidly discusses his coming of age, his sexual history, and his struggle to love himself ... Jones beautifully records his painful emergence into adulthood and, along the way, he honors his mother, a single parent who struggled to support him financially, sometimes emotionally, but who loved him unconditionally until her death in 2011. Jones is a remarkable, unflinching storyteller, and his book is a rewarding page-turner.

... powerful ... Jones’ frank and dramatically poetic prose makes How We Fight for Our Lives a personal, inspiring manifesto of self-acceptance as an out, proud, and successful black gay American ... Along with being explicitly frank about sexuality and emotional trauma and repressed anger, the central theme of this memoir is his powerful and loving tribute to his mother Carol and the indelible bonds between his mother and her gay son.