Warning: This is not a normal blog post, this is a creative outlet for a project in one of my education classes. Proceed with caution.
I just finished a book called
Openly Straight, by Bill Konigsberg. Before I go into depth about my thoughts on the book, I wanted to say a few things about the author. Konigsberg lives in Arizona with his partner, Chuck. He was a sports writer before he became the full-time fiction writer that he is today. To learn more about this interesting character, here is a link to his website:
http://billkonigsberg.com/about/
Alright, now to the nitty-gritty.
Openly Straight is about a boy named Rafe (full name Seamus Rafael Goldberg). His parents both went to school at Oberlin - I'm sure you can picture that dynamic duo - and his best friend is a girl named Claire Olivia Casey. At his school Rafe hates feeling like all anyone sees when they look at him is "a gay guy". He feels limited in what he can do socially and he is so frustrated by this label that he decides to start over fresh at a new school: Natick, an all boys boarding school in Massachusetts. At this new school he quickly becomes involved with the soccer team and is happy to be hanging out with this group as one of the guys, something he had never been able to do even though he had been in the soccer team at his old school. At Natick he didn't have to worry about making eye contact with the other guys, being in a locker room with everyone, or having the whole school look at him as only a gay kid.
Rafe could be a normal guy
Something he craves very much.
At Natick, Rafe is taking a Writing Seminar with Mr. Scarborough that he quickly refers to as his favorite class and his favorite teacher. In this class every student has to keep a journal that only the teacher will read. In the book there are multiple sections that act as chapters where we get to read an entry Rafe wrote, then read Mr. Scarborough's responses. All the entry's reflect something from Rafe's past that is sort of connected to what is happening in his everyday life at the school. In these entries, though, Rafe is openly gay with his teacher, the only one at the school who knows the truth about Rafe.
On the soccer team, there is a boy names Ben. Rafe and Ben slowly become best friends in a way that they have never been best friends with another person before. When they are alone they are able to let their guard down and talk about whatever comes to mind: Random philosophy (as Ben is a big "idea guy"), sex, family, what they like and dislike. It works for both of them.
Until it doesn't.
***Spoiler Alert! If you don't want to know the ending skip down until you get to the words - I have to admit...
Thanksgiving break comes around and Rafe asks Ben if he wants to go to Boulder, Colorado (where Rafe is from). Ben accepted and they went, all the while Rafe has still not told Ben that he is gay. So at home his friends and family grudgingly help him and don't talk about Rafe being gay or make any comments that would allude to that fact. It is just ignored, a big elephant in the room that everyone knows about except Ben. Besides that Thanksgiving goes well and during some time the boys are alone and talking about how glad Ben was that he was able to be at Rafe's for the holiday, Rafe leans in to kiss him.
After this things start to change, but both of them are thinking of the situation in different terms. Ben thinks this is both of them experimenting, trying to figure themselves out. But Rafe already knows he is gay and he sees this as a sign that Ben might be gay. They love each other, but both of them have different meanings when they say they love each other. One loves for friendship the other is
in love.
Things hit a new level when one night Rafe heads to the bathroom in the middle of the night after waking up all hot and bothered to, as he says "take care of business", and he is a few steps past Ben's room when the door opens and Ben is standing there, a little tipsy. Rafe ends up in the room and they talk a little bit. One thing leads to another and they end up having sex together. Rafe goes to sleep happier than he has ever been.
But this is a turning point for Ben. He realizes that he is not gay from this experience, even though he wouldn't mind what other people say about it if he were. He tells Rafe that he just wouldn't feel like himself if he were gay. It is important to really emphasis here that I never got the feeling while reading the book that Ben was gay. He talked about his ex-girlfriend Cindy - not that he could have been covering up being gay, but I honestly never thought he was gay, even when he and Rafe were getting a little more physical.
Even though Rafe was happy to have been with Ben, he feels so guilty about not telling Ben the whole truth, especially because they start growing distant. They end up in Ben's room and Rafe finally tells him the truth, the whole truth. They have a fight and when Rafe continues to think the issues is that Rafe didn't tell Ben he is gay, Ben says, "The barrier isn't straight versus gay; it's real versus bullshit" (p. 290).
In the end, Rafe comes to the realization that no one else was putting labels on him except himself. People weren't looking at him strangely all the time because he was gay, sometimes they might be looking at him and thinking about themselves. It wasn't always about him and that was important for him to understand.
The books ends with Rafe being openly gay again at this new Natick. He and Ben are not really friends anymore, but in their last interaction Ben says that he knows Rafe didn't do what he did to be a mean and devious guy. There is the potential for friendship later. Rafe is a little more okay in his skin and he celebrates differences.
***For those who didn't want the ending spoiled, this is where you can tune back in.***
I have to admit that my first impression of the book was not a positive one. I can't remember the last time I read a young adult novel, but I think the last one I read was by Sarah Dessen (for those of you who read my last blog post, that will not be a surprising claim). The reason I say my first impression wasn't good is because of the use of language. The way Konigsberg writes is in such a way that it can be more accessible to more kids that if it had been written with more mature language. A lot of the books I read now are not as casual in the tone, not as talky - if that makes sense. I was caught up in the way the book read and it was really annoying for me. Rafe came off as this irritating, self-absorbed guy who can't really look at the world through any other view than his own. The more I read and the more that happened in the book, the less distracting the authors tone was, but I still caught myself reflecting on the use of language throughout the book.
On the outside, this is a book about a gay boy who decides not to tell his peers at his new school so as not to be treated differently, but I believe there is a lot more beneath the surface. One of the things that struck me the most in this book was that Ben and Rafe couldn't be the friends the way they were behind closed doors when they were in public. When they were alone they could hug, cry, talk about whatever they wanted to, but they felt they couldn't do that in public. I never had this happen to me, but I couldn't stop thinking about how terrible that must feel for people who have to do this with their friends. I'm the type of person who thinks if you are not yourself all the time, than people don't actually know you. Rafe learned that the hard way.
When I think back to my experience in high school I can't remember being labeled as anything, but there were people at my school that had a label: The hicks, the stoners, the jocks, the drama-kids, the gamers, etc. I had friends in high school that were - and still are - gay, but that was not something they felt labeled as, the only defining factor of their being. But Rafe felt that being gay was his only identifier. He wanted to be a normal guy, but I honestly don't think that guy exists. As human beings we like to categorize everything into nice and neat little groups, including people. I have never in my life heard of a group being referred to as "the normal guys". It just doesn't happen. Because no one can define what normal means. What I deem normal and what someone else deems normal could be completely different. That is why we define people by something more broad, like jocks and drama-kids. Unfortunately for some, their label might be their sexuality whether they like it or not. I think Rafe could have gone into the school as an openly gay guy and have still been a part of what he was a part of if he didn't make as big of a deal about being like everyone else. Near the end when he was open at Natick he started doing just that and found that no one did care if he was gay or not.
Because this text was so plot-driven, I paid more attention to the events in the book and how everyone reacted to those events. It was almost as if the people didn't really matter except for Rafe because there was not a whole lot of character development except for a few characters, but you still don't really know those characters extremely well. Personally, I don't think I would have read this book on my own if I were in a book store and saw it. I think there are some great scenes, but as a whole I have read more exciting books or books that touched me more than this one.
I don't know if I made a whole lot of personal connection to this book, either, but when I was growing up I moved around a lot and went to many different schools. I understand what it means to be the new kids and how great it feels to fit in with people you might not have fit in with at a different school, but when you think about it, the cool kids a one school could be the geeks at another school. I think the "celebration" of differences, like Rafe talks about in the book, depends on the student body and their interactions. I think another reason I didn't really connect with the book, again, is because in a store I would have read the first chapter and put it back on the shelf. Because we picked books from a list in class, I didn't really get a clear vibe of the book before picking it.
This book is fun at parts and has some great moments, as I said, but I don't think I would ever use it in a classroom. I think there would be better YA books for me to use in class that deal with labeling people or how people perceive someone else, one example (since I brought up Sarah Dessen earlier) could be
Just Listen. In that book there is a boy who no one really knows and there are so many rumors about him and a girl who was raped but hasn't told anyone and she doesn't have friends anymore because of it. That would be a more interesting book to use when it comes to what is really going on inside someone versus what other people think of that person.
Openly Straight is interesting because it looks at a kid who happens to be gay, but I don't think his sexuality really matters, I think the fact that he thinks he is seen as one thing is the important detail.
(For more on
Just Listen go to this link:
http://sarahdessen.com/book/just-listen/).
It is so interesting to go back and read a young adult novel after not reading them for a few years. I might just have to go through the YA section of Barns and Noble sometime and get reacquainted with the books there. I have read some really great ones in the past and I'm sure there are just as many good ones still being produces.
Barnes and Noble? Here I come!!
--> This post is brought to you by Miaja St. Martin the Denison University student. For anyone who is not my professor who read until the very end, I commend you. I would high five you if I could, but seeing as this is a blog, you will understand if I don't. Also, I want to put it out there that this is not how I write academically. That would be terrible. This is just a fun way for me to write a book review, because my professors is great and appreciates creativity. Just sayin'.
