Boy meets Boy

Before you read this I want you to do two things for me. One, forget your vindications and two, remember the last thing that truly, honestly, warmed your heart and made you smile. Once you’ve managed that please continue.
Among some recently rescued items from my previous home was a book given to me by a friend. A small young adult book that is not quite two hundred pages long. It’s titled ‘Boy meets Boy’ and just as the name implies it’s a high-school romance between Paul and Noah. They aren’t faced with the prejudice of an unforgiving town and social structure (quite the opposite). They aren’t torn apart from their truest of love by a ludicrously evil schoolmate. This is a vary real story about two real teenagers learning to become two real people in love in a fantastically bizarre and real town.
If you couldn’t tell this is a gay story that comes with some staples of any good gay flight of fantasy (or so I’m making up right here and now). A drag queen who is the prom queen and the star quarterback. A friend’s parents who are vary Christian in the sense that they think homosexuality is a sin. And of course, drama. If there is one thing gay people are supposed to have more of then straight it is drama. However unlike most teen novels where I can hardly say I like much less sympathize with the drama llamas I read about every thing that happens in ‘Boy meets Boy’ isn’t unbelievable, it’s strangely familiar, like I’ve had similar conversations, had close to the same out comes. Not once did I get pulled out of the story because the way someone reacted was to over the top.
Most of all the way it’s written… It’s not just written in first person, Paul being our narrator, it feels almost like I’m reading metaphors. It never draws from the story and almost always makes the picture of what’s really going on all the more clear in my mind.
Not that the entire thing is flawless, there are some practical issues I have with the town it’s self but I didn’t honestly think of them while I was reading the book. It’s only now that I stop and look back that I see that this anytown gay-topia was maybe a little too perfect to be really believable. However these thoughts come after I’m done and thinking critically about it, not while when those kinds of thoughts can ruin then entire story.
I’m not going to tell you what happens. I will say that compared to the end of this book the end of Disney and Pixar movies seem empty and shallow. It’s not the kind of ending where everything is the way it should be. Instead everything is looking brighter; everything really will be ok no matter how it turns out. And being at a point in my life when nothing seems to work out I have found a bit of hope from this story. Not even about love, the ending is so much more then just Noah and Paul live happily ever after. It’s that hope that no matter what’s wrong you can over come it. You can be who you really are. You can be with the person you love. You can move on and be happy.
I’m not an avid reader. I simply find most books to dry and shallow because humans would much rather be shown something then be told something. But ‘Boy meets Boy’ is a painting, a wall sprayed with angry red and sad blue. Happy yellow and fiery orange, friendly green, flamboyant purple and hopeful white all mixing together and colliding with perfect shades of mixed colors and emotions. It grabs your attention because of it’s sharp contrast to everything around it and it keeps you staring into the swirling colors because there’s so much to take from it.
For such a simple book it’s had a fairly great deal of impact on me. I recommend this to anyone who loves romance and colors and songs and true friendship and real people and an ending that will stick with you for a good long time to come.

‘Boy meets Boy’ is written by David Levithan. Weather he meant such a simple but well developed story to be so inspiring I don’t know but I sincerely thank him. He may have pulled me out of one of the darkest pits I’ve ever been in. Thank you vary much sir.

I will say that now I sadly want a girlfriend with no prospects in sight. I just think it’s a bad idea to go to a gay bar before you can actually drink.