The novel is a typical coming-of-age story for a gay teen in high school where he feels like he cannot be his authentic self. The story starts with signs of suicidal ideation, but then doesn’t deal with those thoughts or feelings in the first half of the book, which I found to be a little inconsistent. However, the story continues with Shane Noble living his pretend-straight life with his girlfriend and homophobic friends, a life he’s not happy about. Eventually, the story takes a few interesting and perhaps unexpected turns.
The author understands well the shame that a gay teen might experience, in being different and in disappointing parents. However, the jumps in emotional states did stunt me a bit, disallowing from connecting emotionally to the main character, or any other character, for that matter.
More critically, although this is a YA, LGBT+ fiction, the written voice does not feel fresh or YA, at all. It comes across that the author's voice has seeped into the writing, and this is unfortunate at best. Whilst reading, I spotted phrases that don’t seem to belong to the narrator; they're just out of element. And then, in most chapters, if not all, there are references to songs from last century. I found that to be quite jarring. Firstly, explaining thoughts and emotions by stating that they’re like the lyrics of so-and-so is more of a tell; it doesn’t show me anything. Moreover, because this is YA fiction, I doubt that the audience would particularly get most references. In fact, from so many references, I only got one:
“The words from Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’ came to mind, about life being a mystery, and we must all stand alone.”
and that’s because Madonna is huge in gay culture, unlike most other referenced artists. And from that sentence, you could understand how little description it adds to the narrative.
Despite these caveats, the outline of the story is solid. Overall, I rate this book as average (3/5 stars), as I was interested enough to continue reading. However, I do wish that the writing would've been more fresh and exciting, and that some parts of the story were a little less forced or given enough time to blossom.
I received a free copy from Reedsy's Discovery in exchange for an honest review.
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