Escape In A Book: glbt

Everyone and their neighbour have already read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Now I have as well, but did I like it?

As a side note, don’t you think everyone should have to come out? Why is straight the default? Everyone should have to declare one way or another, and it should be this big awkward thing whether you’re straight, gay, bi, or whatever. I’m just saying.

My short, unfair and spoiler free synopsis:

Simon is gay. No one knows, except Blue. Blue is also gay, and the two boys have a secret, anonymous email exchange going on. A wonderful friendship is in the making. Only trouble is on the horizon. One day Simon forgets to log out of his email at school and the mistake will soon throw Simon’s world into chaos.

Well let me start by using the phrase “all the feels” for the first time ever, because truly Becky Albertalli writes the most genuine scenes. It was not a sad story, but the parts that were borderline sad, the happy scenes, the angry scenes and every other emotional evoking scene all felt so genuine. By the last part of the book I was a bit frustrated, angry, I laughed, laughed again, cried a few tears, laughed some more and then I cried again. I told my significant other that I would think myself a bit emotional unstable I had observed myself from the outside as he did.

All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.

Believeable characters

Simon is a great character. He is not without faults, but he has this admirable ability to look back and reflect upon incidents where he did wrong. I loved that about him. Along with Simon, there are plenty of other well fleshed out characters. Even the ones just doing a guest performance in the story felt like real people. Well done, Becky!

There is a lot of love, caring, support and empathy between these pages, as well as there are a handful of people who contribute to evoke the opposite kind of feelings. Like in the real world, Simon have some encounters with people who are narrow-minded, but he slays them with his bravery (yes, that was just a silly metaphor, this is not a fantasy novel).

My limbs feel really heavy. I kind of want to go home and crawl into bed with my iPod. But the curtains start to open. And I keep moving forward.

It’s not easier. It’s impossible. Because even though it feels like I’ve known Abby forever, I really only met her four months ago. And I guess there hasn’t been time for her to have any set ideas about me yet. But I’ve known Leah since sixth grade, and Nick since we were four. And this gay thing. It feels so big. It’s almost insurmountable. I don’t know how to tell them something like this and still come out of it feeling like Simon. Because if Leah and Nick don’t recognize me, I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

Becky Albertalli have created a fictional contemporary world that I fell in love with. The wonderful friends, loving family, the cutest love interest and a truly amazing teacher, I could have read on about them all for hours and hours. I was sad to let them go.

For those who find it of importance: there are some swearing, a tiny scene of underage drinking and references to sex. All addressed with the loving care, concern and advice of Simons parents. In my opinion, nothing to hide from a seventeen-year-old living in the real world. Then again, I live in one of the Nordic countries and scenes like described above very rarely shock us – is that an American thing? Some might find us weird, I mean we rarely to never ban books even. A real live book utopia that is ;)

I could have written more in depth about this novel, but I do not wish to do so. I just want the world to know, if in doubt, that I LOVED Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda! It is an important novel for young adults and adults alike. Not only does the books address the challenges of being gay and the huge deal everyone makes the “coming out” part out to be, it also addresses what it is like to be a teenager and how a parent/child relationship evolves through the years regardless of whom you love.

Book source: I bought the book.

Every good story deserves a happy ending – it’s a basic rule of storytelling. The boy next door certainly shouldn’t die.

Undone tells the tragic story of a sixteen year old boy who commits suicide, because society cannot accept that he is gay, and how his best friend Jem copes with the loss. A well written YA contemporary from UK author Cat Clarke.

Undone, published in 2012 by Quercus. 502 pages.

Torn

I have so many conflicted feelings inside of me after having finished reading Undone. On one hand it was a great read, with an unexplainable hook keeping me invested throughout the story on the other hand there were some things that bugged me very much.

Kai was the best, and the only, friend Jem had and in her opinion the only one she needed. Jem loved Kai dearly, not only as a friend, but he could never give Jem what she wanted. Jem understood and kept loving Kai all the same. One day Kai's sexuality was being outed in the worst possible way, in the end he cannot bear to live with it.

And I knew. She didn’t even have to tell me. I knew. But she told me anyway. I screamed. A raw, animal sound that I would never have imagined could come out of my body. Then I blacked out. When I woke up he was still dead.

After recovering slightly after the horrible shock Jem decides that she are going to revenge Kai. And so begins the journey, a great drama, in some ways unlike things I have read previously but also other areas recognisable from films and other novels. Jem moving up the ladder in the social hierarchy and leaving who she once was behind for the sake of payback for the boy that she loved.

He was the type of boy who would lie flat on his back in the middle of the lawn to make sure the sky above was still the same sky he’d left behind in Manchester.

Slut shaming

The story is told through the eyes of our main character, Jem, that means the reader is left to interpret her view of the world. It is soon established that Jem is not alway trustworthy in her judgment and that her view of friendship(with other people than Kai) is messed up. Jem is so judgemental, negative and suspicious. I have to say that I did not like the way Jem several times turned to slut shaming - like in this example(and this was not the worst one):

But she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up, which was pretty much unthinkable to the popular, slutty girls she was friends with.

Wearing make-up does not turn someone into a slut, but in Jem's bitter mind it does. Also I found Kai's voice from the afterlife felt a bit stereotypical, it sounded a bit like one of the guys from the tv-series Queer Eye. Shopping, hair and make-up.

This month is all about SHOPPING! Your very favourite thing, right?!

Social media and intolerant people

To me this was the tale of coping with grief and also how hard it can be to have the world know about your sexuality if you are not yet ready to tell and I must add that there still is a lot of narrow minded people in our world, sadly. This story also does a great job showing how social media and cell phones can be used for bullying and that things that go viral cannot be taken back. In Jem's own words:

Kai and I would be living in a world where nobody cared about your sexual orientation. Being gay wouldn’t be gossiped about or frowned upon – it wouldn’t even be worth mentioning. It would just be a fact. A mundane sort of fact.

As a parent myself I think this is a good read for adults as well as young adults. It is a reminder that one should step up, care and see the teenager - our kids needs us way beyond the age of ten. I wanted to shout at the book why the hell haven't anyone fixed therapy for Jem? But I guess we would not have had this story if Jem went to a councilor. In my opinion there is some serious case of neglect or at least turning a blind eye from the parents in this story.

‘I really, really like you, Jem.’ The way he says it makes it seem like a declaration of the deepest, most sincere love.

The cast and THE END

I sometimes wished the author had chosen another narrative point of view, the first person narrative in this story makes it difficult to get to know the other characters more intimately. Despite of the issues I had with this novel I still liked it. Jem irritated me so much, but I still could not stay away from the book - always wondering what Jem was up to.

The ending of the story was like it had to be, but still I would very much like a sequel to the story. I need more, pretty please Mrs. Clarke!

The sun’s coming up now. I was hoping for a proper, beautiful sunrise, but I think we both know you don’t always get what you wish for.

Cat Clarke was born in Zambia, but lives and writes from Scotland. Cat is publishing a new ya novel(already on my wish list), The Lost and Found, with Quercus this year, in May.