The Day I Stopped Being Pretty

From page one this books grabs you, holds you and won't allow you to leave it alone. I am an avid reader, living in NYC, and this book was more than what I expected. I got this book the week I found out I was HIV positive and it has been my crutch. I made me laugh, cry and think. Mr. Lofton was open, honest and raw in his writing. He didn't sugar-coat anything to make it seem all rosey red. He took you on a journey of his life so that you can see that LOVE and PAIN sometimes run in the same race. I suggest you sit back and get ready for a ride you won't soon forget. This is a book that you will not want to end.

The Day I Stopped Being Pretty takes you on a journey of one searching for love, self-discovery, and a reason to keep living. Rodney Lofton is able to tell his story in a way that allows the reader to connect to him personally. When he cries you want to cry with him, when he celebrates you want to scream out with joy! This story is more then a story of a gay man who his exploring his sexuality its one of a child who lives for his fathers approval, and works hard to make his mother happy. It is a story of a man searching for love and giving his all and to those who are not very deserving and a tale of a young man who feels his life has ended and with the help of his mother and searching deep in his self he finds the will to live. All should read this story of how a young man with little guidance found his way and helped those who needed him most. The Day I Stopped Being Pretty is a must read for all gay, straight, black, white, or purple, it contains life themes that all have experienced and can relate to. Moreover, yes, it can get graphic at times but so is life, so bite your lip and read through until the next page. A story you wont forget.

While reading Rodney Lofton's "The Day I Stopped Being Pretty," I was reminded of Dante Alighieri, and the opening verse of his epoch work, "The Divine Comedy," "In the middle of our life's journey, I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost." Dante found himself exiled, confused, abandoned, and betrayed. The beauty of Dante's epoch work is that it employs rich symbolism and imagery that speaks to our common human experience of alienation from self, society, and our spiritual connection only to find our eventual homecoming within as well as beyond ourselves. It takes courage, integrity, and grace to be able to venture into the "dark wood" of loss, fear,abandonment, and shame, and few of us venture on such a perilous journey. This is what Rodney has done in his powerful memoir. Beneath the self loathing and insatiable craving for intimacy is a beauty that longs for expression, to give of itself. I felt frustrated each time Rodney returned like a dog to its vomit, frustrated because I, too, have played out the cycle of shame as well as the desire for intimacy and communion. But if the medicine is in the disease, then Rodney, like Dante before him, understands that it is in revisiting our past where the healing salve of redemption is adminsitered. I am a former Catholic priest and now a psychotherapist & spiritual director working with people in Harlem who are living with HIV/AIDS. Daily I am a witness to movements toward redemption as people find courage to revisit painful places and begin to make connections/communion. Rodney has given some of the clients I work with, courage to be able to tell their story in hope of finding redemption, not from outside themselves, but primarily within where the Mystery manifests Itself. Rodney Lofton embarked on a journey and has allowed us to walk with him, with all it's sordidness, pain, and laughter-a human story, and he offers himself for the benefit of his sisters and brothers in the way of Jesus, Dante, Augustine and so many others who possessed the courage to move past shame, doubt, and fear to experience what Dante experienced, "the Love that moves the sun and all the stars." The end of our exploring may be to merely rest in the arms of Love, however and wherever It is found. Thank you, brother, for taking me there.

Exposed - Rodney had the courage of his own convictions and freely extended a look into the abyss where he'd resided for so long, but only to self-resurrect! Even the darkest of time throughout are illuminated with severe clarity. From his absentee father which approval was so desired was fleeting and non-existent. This was the premium fuel that was not stoked nor fanned or freely given. The need for his father's approval was paramount at all times. The love of his mother and grandmother was his mainstay and continues. The countless intimacies good, bad and destructive created an individual what seemed like multiple personalities at times. Rodney suffered in silence but wore it well! At his own expense, he placed everyone's happiness before his own hoping he'd found love only to realize that he'd allowed "Pandora's Box freedom! If nothing else, "The Day I Stopped Being Pretty" spoke volumes that love is NOT only emotions, but BEHAVIOR. And the best thing, love is NOT supposed to hurt. I found myself riding a rollercoaster realizing I'd never purchased a ticket! What a ride! This is truly an emotional, physical, sexual and mental exercise in survival. I sincerely thank you for sharing your life and its experiences. Continue on and upward. Her (Pandora) box is clsoed!

I had the pleasure of reading a preview copy of Rodney Lofton's The Day I Stopped Being Pretty, last year. When I read it, I knew instantly that this memoir would become the sensation that it has. The story tells of Mr. Lofton's early years of coming to grips with his sexuality (as well as the reactions of friends and family) and the effects of an emotionally absent father, to the present where he is triumphantly battling HIV. Reading his life story brought me to tears, and at times made me laugh. Mr. Lofton's writing style is fluid and intriguing and never once did I lose interest. The only time I put the book down was when I absolutely had to. Though this book is written by a gay man, it is not a gay story, because everyone who reads it will walk away reflecting on how their past can sometimes affect the present. And we all can relate to looking for that right love but sometimes finding the wrong ones. I highly recommend this memoir.