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Bill Konigsberg, free ebook
Today's post is a rec for author Bill Konigsberg, who has written several excellent Young Adult novels featuring LGBT teen protagonists. He has a short story Openly, Honestly, which is available for free as a Kindle book on Amazon, but you'd have to read Openly Straight first, as the short story bridges the gap between that book and the new sequel, Honestly Ben (which I am currently in the middle of reading).
Minor spoilers below the cut, but nothing you can't find out from the official summaries for the books.
Openly Straight is about Rafe, who is openly gay, and while most people at his school are accepting of him, and his parents are almost embarrassingly supportive (enthusiastic and proud PFLAG members), he's tired of being known as "the gay kid". So when he gets the chance to transfer to a New England boarding school, he jumps at the chance to reinvent himself at a place where no one knows him. It's not that he's ashamed of being gay, he just wants the chance to fit in and be a normal kid without being singled out. He won't lie, he tells himself, he just won't volunteer the fact that he's gay. He fits in right away, and enjoys the chance to be popular and just one of the guys--except that he does find himself lying about being straight almost without thinking about it. And the longer he lets the lie go on, the harder it is to tell the truth. Meanwhile, Rafe is starting to have feelings for his new best friend Ben, and the supposedly straight Ben might be developing feelings for him, too. But how can he tell Ben that he's been lying to him all along...?
Openly, Honestly shows what happens after the shit has hit the fan at the end of Openly Straight, and how Ben and Rafe are both dealing with the fallout of Rafe's lie when they go home for winter break. Honestly Ben continues the story, focusing on Ben this time, as he tries to sort out his confused feelings about Rafe, and also about his family, as he's growing increasingly troubled by the way his authoritarian father rules the family with an iron hand, and how it affects not only him, but his mother and younger brother as well. "Iron hand" being figurative; he isn't physically abuse, although I'd say that his unyielding and controlling attitude is emotionally abusive, and I kind of hate him, but at the same time, I see why Ben loves him. Konigsberg does a good job of portraying the father as a three-dimensional character--it's clear that he does love Ben and wants the best for him, but at the same time, he is the only one who gets to decides what is "best" for Ben or the rest of the family, and no dissension is tolerated. At this point, I'm even more curious to see how things turn out between Ben and his father (and the rest of his family) as I am to see how things turn out between him and Rafe.
Konigsberg's other books, Out of the Pocket and The Porcupine of Truth are also excellent--Out of the Pocket is my favorite of the two, although I would love Porcupine just for the title alone even if it wasn't a great book (which it is).
Minor spoilers below the cut, but nothing you can't find out from the official summaries for the books.
Openly Straight is about Rafe, who is openly gay, and while most people at his school are accepting of him, and his parents are almost embarrassingly supportive (enthusiastic and proud PFLAG members), he's tired of being known as "the gay kid". So when he gets the chance to transfer to a New England boarding school, he jumps at the chance to reinvent himself at a place where no one knows him. It's not that he's ashamed of being gay, he just wants the chance to fit in and be a normal kid without being singled out. He won't lie, he tells himself, he just won't volunteer the fact that he's gay. He fits in right away, and enjoys the chance to be popular and just one of the guys--except that he does find himself lying about being straight almost without thinking about it. And the longer he lets the lie go on, the harder it is to tell the truth. Meanwhile, Rafe is starting to have feelings for his new best friend Ben, and the supposedly straight Ben might be developing feelings for him, too. But how can he tell Ben that he's been lying to him all along...?
Openly, Honestly shows what happens after the shit has hit the fan at the end of Openly Straight, and how Ben and Rafe are both dealing with the fallout of Rafe's lie when they go home for winter break. Honestly Ben continues the story, focusing on Ben this time, as he tries to sort out his confused feelings about Rafe, and also about his family, as he's growing increasingly troubled by the way his authoritarian father rules the family with an iron hand, and how it affects not only him, but his mother and younger brother as well. "Iron hand" being figurative; he isn't physically abuse, although I'd say that his unyielding and controlling attitude is emotionally abusive, and I kind of hate him, but at the same time, I see why Ben loves him. Konigsberg does a good job of portraying the father as a three-dimensional character--it's clear that he does love Ben and wants the best for him, but at the same time, he is the only one who gets to decides what is "best" for Ben or the rest of the family, and no dissension is tolerated. At this point, I'm even more curious to see how things turn out between Ben and his father (and the rest of his family) as I am to see how things turn out between him and Rafe.
Konigsberg's other books, Out of the Pocket and The Porcupine of Truth are also excellent--Out of the Pocket is my favorite of the two, although I would love Porcupine just for the title alone even if it wasn't a great book (which it is).