Paul has it pretty easy. The high school sophomore discovered and accepted his homosexuality at an early age, his parents love him the way he is, and he apparently attends one of the most liberal high schools in America. The football team’s star quarterback is a drag queen, who is also elected homecoming queen. Paul has a close circle of friends, which includes his gal-pal Joni and Tony, who in sharp contrast has fundamentalist parents that are trying to pray his gay away.
However, while Paul may be free from many of the more unpleasant issues often faced by gay teens, his life is far from uncomplicated. As “Boy Meets Boy” opens, Paul has a chance encounter with Noah, a new kid at school who takes his breath away. Paul has had boyfriends before, but nobody he felt as strongly about as he does for Noah. And, apparently the feelings are mutual, but things don’t go smoothly for our hero, as his life gets even more complicated and he has to struggle to win Noah’s heart.
I usually avoid books labeled “Young Adult” (YA). I’m definitely not young, and I’m not really crazy about the adult part either, but this book came highly recommended so I decided to give it a try. Told in the first person by Paul, the story starts out a little over the top, with the boy discovering he is gay in kindergarten and running as the first openly gay class president of the third grade. By the time you get to the cheer-leading squad on Harleys, you’re most likely at the whatever stage of just going with it. Oddly, it’s right about this point that the tone gets a little more restrained.
While the writing remains relatively breezy throughout, the tone does get more somber as Paul faces some real challenges in trying to balance the demands of his friends, his budding romance and being in high school. While Paul faces many of the typical issues of being a teen in love, the story is thankfully free of all the angst that usually makes YA books so avoidable. Yes, he has the occasional moment of doubt, but he never sits on the fence for long. The characters may not grab you, but they won’t bore you either.
That the characters didn’t grab me, I put down to the enormous difference between us, both in terms of age and experience. It’s been a very, very long time since I was in high school, and that was back in the dark ages when those of us who were gay generally tried to blend in as much as possible. There were no openly gay students in my rather large suburban high school, so Paul’s world is something I have a hard time even imagining. Paul’s world is so far removed from my own that it almost reads like speculative fiction, rather than simply an exaggerated view of what the world can be like for teenagers today.
“Boy Meets Boy” may be purchased from Amazon
