LGBTQ advice columnist JP Brammer is accustomed to mixing his personal life, sense of humor, and heartfelt thoughts into his writing. In this memoir, his ability to laugh at what once made him cry really shines. From growing up as a gay biracial kid in rural Oklahoma to career woes to learning to use his writing to help people, Hola Papi is an earnest and uplifting book about finding your place in the world.

John Paul Brammer's book of memoir essays, which shares the name of his popular advice column, was a quick but thoughtful exploration of his growing up and trying to figure out where he fits in the world. Anyone who has read and enjoyed his advice column will enjoy this book. Each essay begins with an advice prompt but the narrative with travel where as Brammer takes the reader along with him on his journey.

Read if you: Want an entertaining, funny, yet poignant memoir of growing up Latino, gay, and unpopular in Oklahoma before finding a career as a LGBTQ+ advice columnist.

Librarians/bookstore owners: Purchase for readers who seek LGBTQ+ writing from BIPOC authors. Looking forward to more books from Brammer!

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster & NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is deep, but still lighthearted and funny in the way it moves through stories ignited from self-help questions. Many of the stories address life as a gay man in Oklahoma, through moving to bigger gay cities like DC and NYC. All in all, this is a superbly written book, and a must read for anyone who has ever struggled with identity.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Written as a series of responses to questions asking for advice by gay men of varying ages and life experiences; answered by a gay Mexican-American who grew up in Oklahoma; poor, multicultural and very much struggling to find the answers to the same questions for himself.
Never seeming to come from a place of knowing better and dispensing answers that he struggled to find for himself, he zeroes in directly on the heart of the issue at hand. When speaking of reconciling with a bully from junior high, he states 'the axe forgets, the tree remembers'. How TRUE! It's easy for the bully to forget and dismiss the abuse, but the recipient remembers and relives the experience over and over psychically. I found many touchstones to my own story while reading this book.
I recommend reading this book to anyone with questions regarding their gay path in life or anyone just looking for an insightful and thoughtful look at life's imponderable questions.
This book was given to me by Net Galley in exchange for a review. I thank them for the opportunity to read it.

¡Hola Papí! is a delight to read: honest, thoughtful, and hilarious. John Paul Brummer writes an advice column aimed at (primarily) a gay, multicultural audience. As a gay man who grew up in Oklahoma with one Latinx and one anglo parent, his life has been a years-long process of embracing himself, his cultural identity, and his affectional orientation.

What I love most about this title is Brammer's sincerity and lack of pretension. He isn't in the advice business to advertise his own sophistication. He's in it to help people who have taken a long time to find their true selves or who are still on that search. Regardless of your cultural background or affectional orientation, this is a book that rewards the reader. If you've ever wondered who you are or how to be that person—or if you just like humor that comes at no 0ne else's expense, check this title out!

I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

There's something to be said about books that correctly capture the difficulties and joys of being a queer PoC. JP Branner does just that.

With the Q&A layout, JP finds a way to shape his memoir around themes that are relevant to others, while also positioning his memoir as a point of reference and not an end-all be-all experience for all queer PoC. While JP does discuss the difficulties that come with being a gay Mexican-American man, he also acknowledges his privilege and discusses some gay men's misogynistic views.

Overall, a great and engaging read - totally recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley & Simon and Schuster for the advanced copy.

What a wonderful book! I'll be honest, I've never heard of John Paul Brammer before reading "Hola Papi" but I'm a fan now! This essay collection/memoir got me out of a very long reading slump. Brammer's writing is witty, refreshing, emotional, and unfiltered. One minute, I was cracking up, and the next I was tearing up. This book chronicles Brammer's struggles as a gay biracial young man growing up in rural Oklahoma in the mid-'90s. He writes honestly about being bullied in middle school, his first girlfriend, his first gay sexual encounter with his best friend, and trying to find his place in the world being biracial. I can relate to the biracial part. I'm also half-white and half-Mexican. Brammer also discusses his aspirations to be taken seriously as a writer, and later finding success as an advice columnist. I absolutely devoured this book! A great balance of the highs and lows of Brammer's formative years and beyond. I like that Brammer never tries to sugar-coat the truth when it comes to his sexuality and race. He seems like a really endearing person. I highly recommend it! And just look at the cover art, so eye-catching!

Thank you, Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for the digital ARC.

Release date: June 8, 2021

"Hola Papi" by John Paul Brammer is a memoir about the author's sexuality, adolescence, heritage, writing, and the ups and downs of adulthood. I wish I knew about this author soon as his way of finding lessons, meaning, and stories in everything he has experienced makes his writing irresistible. On top of this, he is funny and loving, which adds an additional great layer to the stories in this book. This book is split up into a series of short essays, which are addressed to anonymous people who had previously written Brammer. The stories cover many facets of Brammer's life, from his relationship with his grandmother and how this made him want to work in a tortilla factory to be bullied as a middle school student to traveling abroad. I really hope you enjoy this book as much as I did!

With the myriad of important social issues facing us in 2021, bullying seems to have been left in the It Gets Better dust of 2011. John Paul Brammer’s story of his middle school bully was bravely told and sincerely effective, and will stick with me for a while. This is an important, candid book on the author’s coming-out journey, emotional growth, mental health, and unique relationship experiences. These stories will certainly help some young adults, as well. The prose had a good flow, and the writing was fully realized.

“How do I make peace with the years I lost in the closet? How do I forgive and forget? How do I let go of a rotten relationship?” These are a few of the questions John Paul Brammer has received in his time as a gay, Mexican American advice columnist since 2017. He answers them by sharing his own experiences in a new memoir titled ¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons.

Brammer’s debut book is published by Simon & Schuster and joins a growing shelf of modern LGBTQ memoirs. Readers who enjoyed Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, Saeed Jones’ How We Fight for Our Lives, or Jacob Tobia’s Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story will find a quick friend in Brammer’s prose and frank exploration of queer existence.

Each essay in ¡Hola Papi! is framed as a response to troubled readers of Brammer’s column by the same name. In “How to Kiss Your Girlfriend”, he pushes back on the notion that time spent closeted is time wasted by reflecting on his first relationship with a girl. Another anecdote about Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 becomes a how-to on embracing moments of joy, no matter how shallow or unexpected. Within 14 brief entries, Brammer acknowledges the absurdity of everyday existence and simultaneously illustrates the good we can make of it.

Advice is everywhere. Influencers, priests, life coaches, oracles, underwear brands, parents, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, and talk show hosts all stand at the ready to impart seemingly endless wisdom, solicited or not. In particular, the advice column has reigned supreme for roughly 300 years. But advice from and for LGBTQ people only became widely available in the last decade, with regular columns appearing in Xtra magazine, Autostraddle, and Brammer’s very own, which is currently syndicated by The Cut. Before that, gay and trans youth relied on shady chat rooms, random zines, and befriending the rare queer elder for help. Brammer reveals that his own questions about being gay were often answered (or ignored) by people only a few years older than him (mainly some dude in college).

In his opening essay, Brammer ponders the moral dilemmas that came with positioning himself as an authority figure for all things LGBTQ. When he began ¡Hola Papi! — named after the racialized moniker white guys on Grindr kept calling him — at INTO, people flooded his inbox with questions about queer love, health, and discrimination. Whereas straight columnists traditionally replied to letters about social faux pas, strange in-laws, and relationship drama, Brammer’s advice-seekers were as much concerned with their legal rights and social persecution as they were with hookup culture and how to fit in. His self-doubt and concern are what makes this memoir so honest and enlightening. By confronting his limitations head-on, he invites the reader to do the same with theirs.

While Brammer may draw a lineage to advice-givers of yore by calling himself a “Chicano Carrie Bradshaw” in his memoir’s description, it is within its pages that he carefully redefines the breadth of that role by extending its gifts to new audiences.

“¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons” is available for preorder now and debuts on June 8, 2021.

*Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!*

I found John Paul like many others, as an immediate favorite Twitter follow. Even there you can tell there’s a depth and poetry to his writing, while also being hilarious. I quickly signed up for his newsletter and followed him all the other places, and was thrilled to get an eARC of this book. Each essay in the collection is in response to a short question, but is less advice and more memoir and storytelling. I’m always moved when writers can be both profound and straightforward, beautiful and simple. Echoes of Becoming Duchess Goldblatt in that way. I’ll be recommending to my LGBTQ friends for sure, and am excited to keep reading John Paul’s work.

I know Brammer's work from his amazing Twitter account as well as his column, so I was excited about this book. I have to say, though, that the depth and profundity of this volume really blew me away. I was expecting humor (which there is tons of) and some pathos (which, yes), but I wasn't expecting to cry by the end. As a white cis woman, this book isn't written for me (which is great--way fewer books should be written for my demographic), but that didn't impede my ability to appreciate it in the slightest. Also, some of the questions are really 'for' everyone/anyone, and Brammer's capacious, empathetic way of thinking about the world really shines through. Not only can Brammer write, he can convey deep philosophical truths pithily and unpretentiously...this book is a revelation.

What a god.damn delight this book is.

I've been a fan of JP Brammer's twitter for quite awhile. He would make some quip about Oklahoma and politics - a friend would retweet - and I would giggle because I understood. I understood Oklahoma, their backwards politics, the sweetest people you'll ever meet, and the underlying racism of a small town. I'm also a former resident of a rural Oklahoma town. In fact, many of the locations that JP discusses in this book are very familiar - the Lawton mall, the Walmart parking lot, the rural backroads, the dark movie theater (PLEASE tell me it was the Cinemark......). 100% same.

Written as almost a 'best of' his 'Hola Papi' column, JP talks about his life, growing up and being bullied, trying to be straight, the curse of small towns and his life after leaving that same small town. It's heartfelt and heartbreaking. There were several time that it was hard to read because of the raw emotion that JP was expressing.

There are moment of laugh out loud (the brown Hollister shirt) and then moments were I was just sad for the little JP, suffering his way through middle school.

All in all, this is an excellent book and I hope it's not the last of JP's essays and books.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book. Thank JP for writing this. Maybe one day, we'll be on the same flight back to Oklahoma.

John Paul Brammer’s first book, “Hola Papi!”, is a natural extension of his advice column exploring the gay millennial experience. I was pleasantly surprised by Brammer’s sincerity and lack of irreverence, which has become common of the form for a twentysomething millennial memoir, despite how difficult it can be to pull off. Instead, he writes with empathy for himself and for the characters he’s encountered in his life, and has a relatable approach to his queerness, even if queer readers won’t necessarily identify with his life experiences. All the modern apparel of queer life are present (including Grindr, from whose editorial operation Brammer’s column started), providing at first glance the façade of a less interesting collection that could be written by any aspiring aesthete in Brooklyn. Brammer rises above these trappings by sticking to what he knows and infusing his stories with a steady sense of interiority, particularly in the essay from which the book claims its subtitle. Of course, in an essay collection, not every essay is created equally, but Brammer has a great hit rate and I look forward to continuing to read his work on Substack and seeing what he does next in longer form.

"Hola Papi" offers a hilarious glimpse into the life of a modern, gay millennial, packed with relatable moments & full of wisdom, reading like a heart to heart with your best friend.

Full disclosure - I wasn't a follower of John's prior to picking up "Hola Papi"; however, after finishing, he's definitely gained a new fan! I loved the way he structured the book - each chapter is set up as a question being asked to John's advice column, "Hola Papi" (a real Grindr-based column, a play on the stereotypical name gay white men would call him on the apps). Within each chapter, the questions are answered through stories highlighting various moments throughout John's life, moments primarily dealing with race & sexuality. I was surprised by some of the topics brought up - CW if you're triggered by bullying, sexual assault, & suicide - but these are very real struggles faced by a number of gay men & are important discussions to be having. John seamlessly weaves between moments of heartbreak & moments of joy, he's truly a talented writer & I feel humbled to have gotten to learn more about these aspects of his life.

I highly recommend this, especially if you're looking to hear from voices within the community that aren't often represented! Thank you so much to John Paul Brammer, NetGalley, & Simon & Schuster for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

JP Brammer is an absolute delight to read. Brammer possesses the ability to deftly navigate difficult discussions about identity, relationships, intimacy, feelings of inadequacy, mental health, etc. while striking a balance between humor and seriousness, authority and humility. It is apparent that his online presence and relevance speaks to this ability and his skills at speaking to many unifying experiences for queer people growing up. The essays in Hola Papi are a display of Brammer's talents and the topics run the gambit from the near ubiquitous middle school nightmare to falling in love and self-discovery.

Beyond finding this book enjoyable and painfully relatable as a Millennial Homosexual™, I found Brammer's essays to be helpful. Helpful in revisiting my past, helpful in considering how my experiences both wonderful and terrifying have shaped my identity and my reality. Whether or not you are familiar with Brammer's writing, you will find something in this memoir on which to ruminate.

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for this advanced copy!

This was a warm, funny, and heartfelt collection of stories. At times, the structure was a bit repetitive, but I enjoyed every minute. Brammer's voice reads like a friend giving you advice based off his own personal experiences. It's a nice blend of humor and wisdom and would be great for LGBTQ+ youth and those newly coming out.

I'm a fan of JP Brammer and his advice column, so I knew I had to pick up his book. It was funny (to be expected) and also hard at parts (a little less expected). Brammer goes into detail about some of the tough relationships in his life, which brings some weight to the overall lighthearted feel of the book. I will say that due to the nature of the repetitive format, this book might be best enjoyed in multiple sittings.

Hola Papi is a nice memoir, but doesn't match the show the cover promises to be. That does not make this a bad read, in fact, I think this is a wonderful read for gay youth that are worried about coming out themselves or want to know what it was like just years ago.

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC for an honest review.