If you are OK with mature subject matter, I recommend this book. If you're not used to it, it will test you. I'm giving it three stars, but that might change upward.

I'll have to let it marinate for a while before I really know what I think. I read it after watching the documentary about the persona JT LeRoy and Author Laura Albert. I was curious if the book was up to the hype and celebrity interest surrounding JT LeRoy.

About the purported hoax, Albert remarks in the documentary Author: the JT LeRoy Story "It says fiction on the cover, the rest is extra." There was a lot of "extra," but all that was only tangential to the book.

So what about the book itself? It was well written and engaging. It was also quite rough in places, which wasn't unexpected, but once the stage was set it turned into being about more than what was on its face. I especially enjoyed some of the use of biblical characters and themes as reference points.