Really Ravishing Review (Boy Meets Boy)
Shannon blogs online at Literati’s Literary Library, and can be found on Twitter under @literati_rain66
Review of Boy Meets Boy, by David Levithan.
Quickie: Absolutely adorable. It will melt your heart.
Full: Noah’s a new boy in town. His parents travel all the time and move the family continuously to be closer to their work. This time though, they’ve promised to stay and settle. It means more traveling for them, less time at home, but Noah and his sister will be able to stay and make friends that they can keep.
Paul has recently been dumped by Kyle. It’s all very dramatic; Kyle dated Paul for a while but then decided that he (Kyle) wasn’t gay. In fact, his brief stint as a gay boy was all Paul’s fault. Kyle dumped Paul and spread all kinds of lovely rumors around the school. Paul’s been coasting through life ever since, hanging out with his best friends, Joni and Tony, and just being a regular guy.
But then…
Paul meets Noah. There’s a spark. A real spark, the kind that keeps you tingling for days. The kind you can’t seem to forget even though your life keeps on going forward, with or without you. Paul is mesmerized by Noah. By his easy smile, his genuinely interesting personality, and of course, there’s that spark.
He’d like to talk about it with Joni, but she’s started seeing this guy Chuck, who Paul really doesn’t approve of or connect with. Tony’s parents are super religious and are petrified that Tony (also gay) will go and “be gay” with some boy. They think that his sexuality is like a switch, if you hit the right button you can switch it off. So they’re desperately trying to do just that… by sending him to church camps and watching his every move. It’s hard for Tony to get out of the house, let alone talk to Paul (a gay boy! *gasp*).
Meanwhile, Kyle (Paul’s ex) has started acknowledging Paul in the hallways again, even giving him a smile and a few words. Paul is intrigued, but wary. Is Kyle playing a trick on him? Is Kyle gay, or not? Seeing him making out in the halls with that girl says “not”, but if that’s the case, then why is he speaking to Paul again? And most importantly, how does he feel about all this? Will this change things?
Confusion abounds, but one thing’s for sure: Paul like Noah, and Noah likes Paul….Right?
This book is lovely. David Levithan can write a love story, no doubt about that. It’s whimsical and emotional and so very honest. Paul’s a sweet kid and I was rooting for him the whole time. He’s sure of himself, but awkward. He’s insightful, but oblivious. You can’t help but love him.
In fact, the whole cast of characters is lovable. Infinite Darlene, the homecoming queen/football quarterback has sass and personality coming out her pores. Joni, the bestie-since-second-grade-turned-mortal-enemy-(maybe). Kyle, the confused but endearing ex-boyfriend who sort of dumped Paul in a very cruel way. Chuck, the lughead. Tony, the boy who knows who he is but has to wear a mask at home and live two very different lives. Noah, the new boy who’s sweet, charming, artistic, and all around wonderful. And of course Paul, the one who ties them all together.
The best part about this book for me, is that I knew Paul. Or, I knew a few mixes of Paul, Noah, Tony and Kyle. Chances are, you know one of them too, or maybe a combination. I felt like I was reading the story of my best friend through middle school. He was a lot like Noah, with a few bits of Paul. His room was an amazing place, it was his personality turned decor. He was strong and vulnerable and his energy and enthusiasm was contagious. I saw all of that as I read Boy Meets Boy. I felt like I was seeing though my old best friend’s eyes. And it made me love him and all the characters just that much more.
Of all the LGBTQ books I’ve read, this is my favorite (so far). The honesty and understanding this book gives the reader is simply delightful. What is Boy Meets Boy? It’s a love story. And it’s not one to miss.
5 out of 5 stars.
Guest Post: Jo Knowles
Last weekend I was driving near the Brown campus in Providence, RI with my family. When we stopped at a light, two male students crossed the street, holding hands. They were chatting away, smiling, like what they were doing was the most natural thing in the world. My husband and I both commented on how nice that was. And how rare.
Because honestly? In most places in this country, you will not see two boys walking along a busy street holding hands. Carefree. Safe.
In most places in this country, there are still boys and girls just like those two ,wondering what’s wrong with them. Wondering if their parents will kick them out of the house if they tell them they’re gay. Wondering if their best friends will still be their best friends. Wondering if they will get the crap kicked out of them if anyone finds out.
I hate that this is true.
When my book, LESSONS FROM A DEAD GIRL, was banned from classroom use in a Kentucky school, the objection was that the book contained “inappropriate themes, including homosexuality.” Calling homosexuality inappropriate is ridiculous. I know this. You know this. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.
In my latest book, PEARL, a blogger who reviews books wrote that, while she liked the book very much, she couldn’t recommend it because of the homosexual content. A reader thanked her, saying homosexuality in books made her feel “uncomfortable.”
When I read this, I cried. Not because I care about the review, but because of what it says about where we are in this country. The irony about all of this, is that the objectionable piece in the book is about two women who love each other and hide it all their lives because they’re too afraid to be themselves. And why? Because who they are is “inappropriate.” It makes people feel “uncomfortable.”
What message do reviews like this give to gay teens who stumble across them? Keep hiding.
That’s why I cried.
My older brother was gay. He didn’t come out until he was in his twenties. He waited to come out because he was afraid, too. The whole first half of his life he had to be two people. In public, he was one Scott. In private and among a small group of friends, he was the real Scott.
I was lucky enough to know the real Scott. The real Scott had a huge heart. He loved adventure. He loved to travel and eat and read and cook and watch James Bond movies and Dr. Who. He wanted to share all of these things with the people he loved. He used to force me to watch cheesy movies with him, trying to convince me to love them as much as he did. He could put his arm around you and I swear you could feel the unspoken words he meant in that simple gesture. The love he gave in it. But far too few were lucky enough to experience this Scott. This beautiful man who was bursting with love and life and never able to fully share his true self. Because for some crazy reason, for some reason I will never accept, people thought who he was, was “inappropriate.” So he hid that side of himself for years. And that is tragic.
What do we do about this?
That’s my big question. How do we make the world a more accepting place? How do we make our communities, our schools, our classrooms, our homes, more accepting places?
I wish I knew the big answer.
But I think one small one, is books.
The beauty of books is that they show us a new point of view. They show us what it’s like to walk around in someone else’s shoes for a while. They show us the world through a different lens. Sometimes it’s a more frightening world. Sometimes it’s a more beautiful one. Sometimes, it’s a more accepting one. Sometimes, it’s ugly. But even in those frightening, ugly worlds, we see some tiny reflection of ourselves and the world we know. We find connections to what we ourselves believe, and maybe we shift those beliefs just a little. Maybe we step away a little less intolerant, because we’re able to see more clearly the ignorance our intolerance stems from. Maybe we step away able to see the person down the street who we’ve always been a little afraid of, as a little less scary. I don’t know. But I think always, always, we step away changed somehow. For the better. Books do that.
Maybe that’s what people who ban gay books are afraid of. Maybe they just need to read more. It’s a start.
Jo Knowles is author of Lessons From a Dead Girl and Jumping Off Swings. She can be found online at http://www.joknowles.com/
Teen Novels: Once Again, a Decade Ahead of Television
Brent Hartinger is an author, screenwriter, and playwright. He can be found on Twitter as @BrentHartinger
I’ve been saying for years that if you want to know what’s going to be on television in five or ten years, look at what’s happening in books today. Like clockwork, we authors always predict exactly where the mass culture is heading.
Okay, so maybe we didn’t predict the outrageous, depressing mess that so much of reality television has become. We authors tend to predict the things that appeal to, um, slightly higher aspects of human nature.
Take the whole issue of gay teens. Did you catch the recent issue of Entertainment Weekly? Gay teens have finally broken through on television in a massive, unmistakable way.
Now I have my own issues with Glee (as much as I love the appealing cast and often terrific musical numbers, I get really frustrated with the often incredibly sloppy writing).
Still, it’s impossible to deny the impact the show has had on popular culture, especially with its gay teen characters of Kurt, Blaine, and Karofsky. Audiences young and old are really, really responding — and the show itself is responding to that by giving these characters increasingly prominent roles.
But let’s go back a few years to, say, 2003. That happens to be the year that a group of gay teen novels all hit it unexpectedly big in terms of sales and mainstream popularity. My first book Geography Club was part of that wave, as was Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters, and Rainbow High by Alex Sanchez.
Of course, there had been plenty of gay teen novels before then, but even all these years later, Julie, David, Alex, and I are still often paired together as a group of writers who saw their similarly-themed books break through at the same time — break-out successes that were all very contrary to the conventional wisdom of the time. I think all four of us wrote great books, but the fact that we all found unexpected success at the same time made it one of those trends that was impossible to ignore: readers wanted more of this.
(Incidentally, I don’t give myself a whole lot of “credit” here: I just happened to have had a book published at the exact right moment in publishing history. I wrote the first draft of the thing back in 1990, and if I’d had my way, it would’ve been published years earlier — and probably would’ve been completely ignored!).
The point is, I could’ve told you that there was this huge, thriving under-the-radar interest in gay teens among teenagers, gay and straight, male and female. I’d already benefited from it! But even so, in 2010, the conventional wisdom still said that the only place for gay teens on television was as peripheral supporting characters. In fact, as a journalist who’s been covering Glee from the very beginning, I can say the break-out success of Kurt, Blaine, and Karofsy even caught the show’s producers by the surprise, much less the network. In the beginning, Kurt was never intended to be more than a minor, supporting character.
What’s the point of all this? To say very simply and very directly that, for all the talk about how “irrelevant” books have become, it’s simply not true. Books still matter. They can be produced much more cheaply than TV or movies, so we’re able to test themes and ideas that investors may not be willing to finance in the more expensive mediums.
Plus — can I just say? We authors are pretty damn smart. After all, it’s literally our job to figure out what’s going on in society, to predict future trends and comment on the good and the bad — and to shape all this in such a way that we can all start to form opinions.
And — this is where it gets really fun — teen books matter maybe even more than other genres. Given that it’s a genre that still doesn’t get a whole lot of respect in the more “literary” circles, I find this wonderfully ironic.
Books still matter very much. You read it here first. Maybe ten years from you, you’ll see that on television too.
Brent Hartinger
P.S. So what are the teen books of today predicting about what will be on television ten years from now? I think it’s mainstream popularity of and acceptance for the paranormal and alternative forms of spirituality … which happens to be the subject of my latest book, Shadow Walkers. 🙂
Review: Pink by Lili Wilkinson
Sam blogs online at LoonyReads, and can be found on Twitter under @Pagan_Elina.
Like many before me, my first introduction to gay and lesbian characters in YA Lit was in Holly Black’s Tithe. I remember being enthralled by Corny, and I found his and Naphemel’s relationship to be riveting and so interesting. I have always been an open minded person and from then on started to read as many GLBT books and I could, partly for my own mixed thoughts about myself. When Vicky asked me to do this Review for the opening of the GayYa.org I chose to review PINK by Lili Wilkinson.
Here is the Good Reads:
Ava has a secret. She is tired of her ultracool attitude, ultra-radical politics, and ultrablack clothing. She’s ready to try something new—she’s even ready to be someone new. Someone who fits in, someone with a gorgeous boyfriend, someone who wears pink.
Transferring to Billy Hughes School for Academic Excellence is the perfect chance to try on a new identity. But just in case things don’t work out, Ava is hiding her new interests from her parents, and especially from her old girlfriend.
Secrets have a way of being hard to keep, though, and Ava finds that changing herself is more complicated than changing her wardrobe. Even getting involved in the school musical raises issues she never imagined. As she faces surprising choices and unforeseen consequences, Ava wonders if she will ever figure out who she really wants to be.
Humor, heart, and the joys of drama—on- and offstage—combine in Ava’s delight-fully colorful journey of self-discovery.
The story of Ava is a story that I think any teen should read whether they are gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender. Ava is a lesbian and unlike most parents, hers threw her a Coming Out Party and adore her girl friend Chloe. In the beginning I was wondering why Ava wanted to change so much, why she wanted to conform to “normal”. She goes to a new school, and gets new friends, even tries to date a boy, Ethan. Ava’s goal the entire book is to become what she thinks is normal, and normal girls wear pink and like boys, right? That’s what is going through Ava’s mind.When Ava decided she needed a boyfriend, Ethan, I could not understand why. Ethan had nothing going for him other than the fact that he was a hot boy. Now Sam, Sam I really liked he was funny and cynical. The whole Screws were amazing, Sam, Kobe, Jules, Jacob, and Jen. By the end of the book I hated Chloe; she became the biggest bully of the story and showed the change that happened in Ava.
I said above that this was a story for everyone and it is. Pink shows that no matter what you need to be true to yourself and don’t allow anyone else to tell you what NORMAL is.
Being a Straight Ally
Chandra Rooney has threatened to stop watching Glee if Kurt and Blaine break up. She sporadically updates her personal blog (Dreaming in Red,) and you can follow her on twitter as @sakuralovestea.
If you had asked teen me to name LGBTQ characters and canon pairings in YA lit, most of them would’ve come from Asian comics. The novels I remember reading as a teen—LJ Smith, Christopher Pike, RL Stine—were all hetro couples; manga was where to find the variety.
It was probably Cardcaptor Sakura that I most connected with; CLAMP had written a story reflecting the relationships already existing in the world around me: Boys liked boys; girls liked girls; some characters liked both. (One of my best guy friends came out to me on my seventeenth birthday—try topping that present—and I had a bisexual classmate.)
This was over ten years ago. While gay characters are hardly common in contemporary YA, at least they have more of a presence than they did. Bisexuality, however, still tends to be accepted even less than being gay. Usually if someone says they’re bi, it’s concluded that they’re “confused.” But if you talk to people in the LGBTQ community, you’ll learn that a bisexual is someone who loves individuals regardless of their gender.
A couple years ago I wrote a tie-in novel for TOKYOPOP based on a Korean comic series. The plot isn’t really important, but there was a romance conflict that involved a young woman being engaged to a guy who it’s suggested may have cheated on her with another man.
I raised the issue to my editor that we should perhaps give some indication that the dude was bisexual, because why would a sane woman worry about her heterosexual fiancé fooling around with another guy? My editor agreed.
Except the problem was that we weren’t allowed to explicitly state the character was bisexual. By the rules of the shonen ai genre, this character had to be seduced by an older ‘experienced’ male. We couldn’t imply that the character being seduced was also experienced.
It bothered me, because it left a logic flaw in the character behavior. But it bothered me more because it might support an underlying implication that people can be “turned gay” or that the seduction had “confused” this character.
I don’t believe people turn gay; I don’t believe people who are bisexual are confused. I certainly don’t want to propagate either misconception to readers.
So we found another way. We were subtle instead of loud. We never explicitly state the character is bisexual, but I think there’s enough there that a reader can guess. While I would’ve preferred to state that the character had had previous same-sex relationships, being a professional writer is about compromising—and choosing which battles you want to fight.
The challenging part of being a straight ally to the LGBTQ community is similar to the challenge of writing ethnic minorities: Some times we who are not worry that we’ll offend those who are by getting something “wrong.”
I’ve been outlining a new project—and getting nowhere with it until I realized that the main character is gay. Is there a huge commercial demand for stories where boys fall in love and pilot battle robots? Maybe not; it could just be one more factor that makes this difficult to sell. But I’m not going to worry about that before I’ve even written a first draft.
Authors have to be true to their characters regardless of gender, race or sexuality; the story will tell you what it needs. Whether it sells or not, wouldn’t you rather spend the time writing something you believe in?