A review by katebrarian
Cub by Jeff Mann

3.0

This was a cute book. I imagine I would have connected with it more when I was the same age as the protagonists and not out, so I definitely would recommend this book for young queers - especially young queers who may feel intimidated or alienated by the queer community as seen in the media, which is usually flamboyant and always overwhelmingly urban. There are a lot of narratives that involve young queers who suffer in the middle of nowhere and then life improves when they go to the big city to find themselves. What I like about this book is that, while there is a "big city" with an open-minded university and queer community, our protagonist Travis is always thinking about getting land in the country and settling down with a farm outside of the city. I also really like that this story doesn't wrap-up. We don't really know what happens with Travis and Mike after the events of the book, and I think that adds to the charm of it.
I can't say I really like the way the dialogue was written...I got tired of hearing about Mike's "scrumptious butt" after a while, and there was something stilted about how the characters spoke to each other that I didn't really like, but overall, this was a lovely story.