Book Review Amanda Thieu

Since this book consists of many mini stories, I’m going to summarize a couple of them that stood out to me. L. Canale is in love with her best friend Carol. These two are inseparable. She’s in a situation regarding her conservative christan father; He does not approve of same sex relationships, yet it’s happening under the same roof. She feels unaceppted and different because her parents downgrades her sexuality. In the beginning of the story L. Canale was trying to keep it a secret but her father ess-dropped on a phone call between the lovers that discovered the hidden relationship. She despises him. All of her thoughts and feelings are written down in a diary form. Her emotions torwards them are horried and agressive. In her diary she uses an abundance amount of curse words and repeatly saying how they should accept her because she’s their daughter. The main conflict in this story is person vs. person because her parents are against her being gay and it creates many problems. The next story is written by a transgender who is now a male named Evin Hunter. When he was younger as a straight 10 year old girl in the 5th grade, he heard about a boy named Matthew Shepard who was murdered because he was gay. He was abducted and left to die in the cold night. This hasn’t struck the writer back then because she barely knew what the word “Gay” meant. Since he is now a different sex it has a much more impact on his life than it was in the 5th grade. He feels that it could happened to him at any moment. There were many “Gay Bashings” which means that they would punish the people who were openly gay. He describes how fear pushes people into sucidal thoughts and actions. The conflict in this story is person vs. society. Many groups around the country are anti gay, which puts gays in jepordy and harm.

For me, I’m straight but everybody has their gay moments. At a point I was bi-curious just to find out my sexuality. Since I cannot relate to being gay, I can relate to the feelings of being an outcast. People can make you feel important and apart of something good, or can tear you down with words and actions. I’ve been in their place. I’ve felt like I was alone and that everybody hated me but I just did not know why. Even though you’re different from most people does not make you a weird or wrong, it makes you an individual.

In my opinion, I was in love with the book. The strengths of the book was that it was in fact written by real teens with real emotions. I felt that there weren’t any weaknesses in the book. I think, that the book was very well written and explained very nicely. If I would have changed anything in the book, I would organize the topics better. For example, I’d put the sexualities in different parts. For instance, gays into one part, transgender in another and so forth. I would also put narratives into one place and poems into another just to make it easier to read.

I would recommend this book to people who like to read anything regarding teens and their lives or like stories about kids in highschool having trouble with their sexuality.