A story set in the southern 1980s about a gay boy, brought up catholic, going to a new high school. This book covered a lot of heavy topics like bullying, racism, and violence, that wasn't taken seriously by anyone. I can't say I loved this story, but curiosity kept me going. The heavy topics could be hard for some readers to read.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. This book had potential but felt forced and stereotypical.

Story circa 1980's of Timmy who is gay, is going into his soph year at a Baptist school, along with his best friend clumsy sweet Carleen. They meet the new kid super good-looking Doug at school--turns out he is also very sweet and also wants to be friends with them, too. Eventually it turns out that Doug is gay too and slowly they grow to have feelings for each other. A lot of other things are going on in the story as well, though, bullying/violence which is not surprising considering the timer period and the school setting, although not taken too seriously by any adults or anyone for that matter which I found rather disturbing. Timmy was a good person and tried to be strong dealing with all these issues, his doubts about being gay, his family, being bullied etc, and I really liked him. Well-written and interesting. Hard to handle some of the reality but it was just that, very real! Definitely liked the ending. Thanks to NG for the ARC!!!

I want to thank Netgalley for providing me an Arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book was an interesting read.
Violence and bullying aside it was a really good read.
I loved the characters and found myself wanting to know more and more.
It was really well written so I give it 3 stars.

This one is interesting to me.

First, a bit about the plot. Timmy is starting 10th grade at a Baptist Academy (a southern school) in 1980, he comes from a devout family (even though his parents are divorced). His best friend, Carleen, chubby and unapologetic is convinced they are going to have the best year ever. Her prediction seems likely when they arrive at school to find out the new kid, Doug is gorgeous. In addition to being cute, Doug is sweet and seems to want to be friends with Timmy.

Timmy is gay and he seems to be the only one who doesn’t know that. Of course, his religious upbringing hasn’t helped with that situation. Very slowly, he begins to realize through his friendship with Doug that he is attracted to boys. The plot isn’t very convoluted, and it’s not unexplored territory. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that’s specifically Baptist before… so there’s that.

While the relationship between Timmy and Carleen is cute – they’ve been friends since playschool – they are both experiencing bullying and are quick to bully each other when times get tough. I found a lot of the bullying uncomfortable to read about (I feel like that’s normal and kudos to the author for making me uncomfortable). I didn’t like that the violence escalated to, what amounted to a severe physical assault, and yet none of the adults in the novel seemed to take it seriously. Even Timmy’s Aunt… who is the only character in the book who seems to love the kid unconditionally, kind of laughs off the assault when she finds out how Timmy dealt with it. I’m not completely oblivious, I know there are a lot of adults who don’t know how to deal with bullying and violence but it seemed to me that someone should have taken Timmy under their wing … other than another grade 10 kid.

Timmy is a very naive young man. That being said, I didn’t grow up in the South nor did I attend a strict Baptist School. But I did go into Grade 10 in 1983… and I can tell you that Timmy’s mannerisms and way of speaking didn’t read true to me. Again… I’m not a Southern Baptist so maybe it’s all very accurate.

Bullying and violence aside, it was a good read. The dialogue is well-written (and I can’t speak to the accuracy of the Southern vernacular). There’s a bit of a fairy-tale ending…but we all need those sometimes, right?