This book was incredibly impactful. While the main topic of the book wasn’t entirely relatable for me, it instilled in me a stronger desire to walk closely to the Lord and surrender all of my sins to Him. I cried multiple times while reading this book, and I rarely cry while reading. Jackie’s story is so inspiring & worth knowing! Her writing style is incredibly poetic, too. I loved this book!

I've been following Jackie Hill Perry for the last several years, so when news came out that she was releasing a book, I was pumped. "Gay Girl, Good God" is essentially Jackie's testimony of God invading her life and bringing her out of a homosexual lifestyle (though she still struggles with same-sex attraction), convicting her of her pride, and bringing her into a lifegiving relationship with Himself. It's not a story about conversion therapy. Jackie is straightforward about the false gospel of heterosexuality that is often touted by well-meaning members of the church. God did not save her to make her heterosexual. He saved her to bring her into a right relationship with Himself.

Jackie's story shares a controversial message in today's cultural context; however, she does a good job of explaining not only her story, but also the goodness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The latter part of the book contains resource-like chapters to bring more tangible messages home to the readers.

The downside of this book (other than how short it is) is that it wasn't edited well. Misplaced commas and unnecessary "to which"s and other issues on the sentence level at times cloud the meaning of Jackie's words. She's a poet, so her use of language is vivid and refreshing, but it seems like her publisher went the cheap route for copyediting.

Such a hard book to review. How to you review another persons life story?

Jackie’s writing is so beautiful. You really can tell poetry is her background when she describes details in the book.

Her Testimony is a great picture of what God does in a persons life. (Changes you completely, constantly pointing out more sin and redeeming you).

The book was short.
There were ALOT of things I wish she talked more about.
The book was more about Sin and how we make Idols.
I think people who are struggling with this issue may find the book non-relevant given the fact that Jackie went on to get married and have a child and seems to be freed from this temptation.
I like that she states “our ultimate identity is very simple, we are Christian”

With the controversy in the PCA and Revoice, I’m interested to see how this book is taken by others?

In my opinion, this book is at the very least unfinished. There are so many loose threads that I think she doesn’t pull on because she wants to glorify God over telling her story, but she was doing that through telling her story, and now I am so confused about a few things. I am hesitant to give a negative review when LGBTQI voices are lacking so heavily in the Christian community and I also recognise she is an African American woman, which means her voice is even rarer. She speaks poetry, which is how she writes as well, and it’s unique and often beautiful. At the very least, she details the chronology of living a sinful life, accepting Christ and then changing her life very clear. That order is really, really good.

However, I could not recommend this to a non-Christian gay person exploring Christianity. I don’t think it has any practical advice, other than her personal testimony of coming to Christ, for what to do before or after you accept Jesus. No notes on being celibate other than that it is a good option to be single, and Jesus understands temptation. A very unhelpful exploration of clothing and femininity when it came to transitioning out of being a “stud” lesbian. Almost no mention of the Bible verses that condemn homosexuality as a sin, and rather an assumption the reader will accept it as one – very unhelpful for gay people exploring faith or new Christians.