The award-winning novel about being out, being proud, and being ready for something else. Pre-order the companion novel Honestly Ben now (out 3/28/17)! Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He plays soccer. He’s won skiing prizes. He likes to write. And, oh yeah, he’s gay. He’s been out since 8th grade, and he isn’t teased, and he goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance … schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. And while that’s important, all Rafe really wants is to just be a regular guy. Not that GAY guy. To have it be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time.
So when he transfers to an all-boys’ boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret — not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate breaking down. He meets a teacher who challenges him to write his story. And most of all, he falls in love with Ben… who doesn’t even know that love is possible.
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Let me start by saying that I am not nor have I ever been a gay teen boy so I can’t speak to the realism of this novel. All I can tell you is that it’s an in depth look into what labels we use as a society and how we use them to create our identities. It took me a while to really get into this book as there’s a lot of exposition but once I did I was truly invested in the main characters journey. I will say that the end left me devastated. I’m a romance reader. This was in the lgbt romance reads section. Even if it’s teen fiction, I expect my romance to have a happy ending and though the main character made major breakthroughs it wasn’t the ending I yearned for. I think it’s a good read that fell just short of being great because of that.
When Seamus Rafeal Goldberg, the only openly gay kid at his high school in Boulder, gets accepted at a prestigious all male Boston private school as a junior he decides to go back into the closet. Not because he’s been persecuted at his old school, far from it.
When queried about his name “Seamus,” a new teacher asks “Oh is your mother Irish?”
“Nope”
“Your father?”
Rafe acknowledges the tenor of the teacher’s question thinking
“This is Boulder. It could easily be two moms. Two Dads. A Dad, a Mom and an orangutan. Three Amish hipsters and a transgendered aboriginal Mermaid. ”
Not only is Boulder about as accepting a place as one could imagine, but Rafe’s parents are aging hippies who celebrate diversity in every way conceivable, and his mom is the President of the local PFLAG chapter. So why would Rafe want to re-enter the closet? Because he’s tired of the label. He wants to be something other than “the gay kid. ” He’d like to go without labels for a while.
His flying “under the radar” at his new school has it’s benefits, he’s suddenly popular and easily accepted by the jock contingent at his new school. He enjoys his new label-free life but he soon encounters problems when he meets Ben, one of the more cerebral of the jocks who somehow sees him differently.
The book is great in that it tells a coming out story from a fresh perspective, (Is that even possible?) especially when it draws a clear distinction between tolerance, acceptance, and celebration. Tolerance is the practice of “suffering people to be different” but clearly implies that they are somehow substandard. Acceptance is only marginally better in that “Acceptance is an affirmation that you’re good enough.” Celebration is really the only one of the three that recognizes that we are all better off for our differences and being different from the norm is often a good thing.
Not only does the book allow me to analyze the issues surrounding coming out from a fresh perspective, it introduced me to two new mixed drinks, “Frosted Ruskie Charms” (Lucky Charms in Vodka) and Plastic Screwdrivers, (Orange Sports Drink and Vodka). Now having read about them I can avoid them without ever suffering their most likely awful tastes and the ensuing hang-overs.
Rafe’s newly re-closeted status also allows us to enjoy having other familiar laments turned on their head. One of the openly gay students at Rafe’s new school asks about his sexual preference and he lies. The gay kid laments…”All the cute one are straight or married.”
The real conflict arises when Rafe realizes that by not being honest about his sexual preference he is in effect lying about an important part of himself. That soon complicates (and possibly endangers) even his most important new relationships.
Finally the book addresses an ever-present issue for teens, the feeling that they are constantly under observation. In this tale, Rafe eventually realizes that most of the time everyone else is paying attention though a filter of how what they’re observing affects them. “No one had really been looking at me all the time. Other than me.”
I’d highly recommend this book. Not only does it entertain and introduce us to some charming characters, it teaches the reader important lessons about self-acceptance… no, correction, make that self-celebration.
It’s a great story about removing labels and stereotypesand opening up and awakening to love.
I’ve always wondered about how it is to be openly gay in our society, when so much of the time people assume everyone is heterosexual. And once you are openly gay, it is like the first and ONLY thing people see about you. But what if you wanted to just be seen as yourself? Can you shed the label of “openly gay” and just exist and find friendships and forge a relationship without “outing” yourself? The narrator finds some benefits to leaving behind his sexual orientation/identity when he goes to boarding school, but soon finds that while leaving that part of himself behind as he tries to forge new bonds, might be beneficial, it eventually backfires. A very realistic read that left me thinking and pondering many questions about identity, self, and the relationships we treasure.
Contemporary teen fiction about a comfortably gay high schooler from CO who decides to go to a private all-boys school in MA to try and not be labeled. It is fun, funny, moving, really interesting. A great “window” book for me, since I am not a gay teenaged boy.
Fantastic YA coming of age book about a typical teenage boy coming to terms with being gay and first loves. A great addition to the diversity of appropriate teen lit.