Book Review: "The End of Eddy" by Édouard Louis (author), Michael Lucey (translator)

"Words like affected or effeminate could always be heard in the mouths of adults around me: not just at school and not only by the two boys. They were like razor blades that would cut me for hours, for days, when I heard them, words I picked up and repeated to myself. I told myself over and over that they were right. I wished I could change. But my body would never obey me, and so the insults would start up again."

Eddy Bellegueule, a young man growing up in a poor town in northern France, is forced to confront how different he is from his peers at an early age. While he wants to be viewed as a man, as masculine, his voice is higher than most, his mannerisms are effeminate, he is unathletic (and not really motivated to try playing sports), and as much as he tries, he cannot hide his growing attraction to men. This spells disaster for a young man among lower class and working class people, whose favorite pastimes include drinking, getting into fights, fighting while drinking, and bragging about their sexual conquests.

The sad part is, the abuse Eddy takes isn't just at the hands of classmates or fellow townspeople—it comes from his own family, who don't understand how or why he is what he is, and are embarrassed that someone like him can be tied to them. While he hears his parents use racial and cultural slurs constantly, he also must get used to his father calling people (including him, from time to time) "faggot" and other derogatory names. It is a depressing life for Eddy; at times he tries valiantly to live along the margins and hopefully go unnoticed, and other times he tries to do what will help him "pass"—find a girlfriend, get into fights, attempt to have sex. But it is difficult for Eddy to escape his true identity.

"And yet I had understood that living a lie was the only chance I had of bringing a new truth into existence. Becoming a different person meant thinking of myself as a different person, believing I was something I wasn't so that gradually, step by step, I could become it."

The End of Eddy is nearly relentless in its brutal depiction of a young man coming to terms with his sexuality and his identity in an environment in which being different is not only discouraged but often met with physical violence and emotional abuse. This is an autobiographical novel, and Édouard Louis brings tremendous emotion to this story of a boy so desperate for approval and love from those around them that he is willing to destroy who he really is, just in the hopes that his parents and siblings would treat him differently.

This was a beautifully written but difficult book to read, because it was very bleak, but Louis treads carefully in not painting his characters as too black and white; you can see that Eddy's parents just don't know what to make of their son, and want to love him but want him to live an easier life, too.

At times, The End of Eddy was a little emotionally uncomfortable for me. It certainly brought back painful memories of adolescence, of desperately trying to be "normal" yet dealing with the slurs of people who wanted to label me because I was different. And of course, different isn't bad, but they didn't see that. But while this book is a tough read, it does sound a note of hopefulness as well, because sometimes the simple act of embracing who you are is what you need to combat those who try and bring you down.

I don't know if this is a book for everyone, but it definitely is one that will make you think and make you feel. It made me grateful that I am where I am at this point in my life, and while no one's life is 100 percent struggle-free, it truly does get better.