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A review by frannook
Different for Boys by Patrick Ness
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
How do you even talk about this book.. I really don't know.
Throughout almost the entire book, I was feeling sick to my stomach, nauseous, disgusted and angry at how far fear can push people, scare them into being the worst human beings, harmful to themselves and to others.
And yet... and yet.
Hidden between the lines, peaking from the pages... there's a tender care.
There's loneliness, that desperate search to find a place where you belong.
There's a need for someone that will understand what you're feeling and who you are while being terrified of showing and being who you truly are.
There's humor.
There's a challenge to heteronormative ideas of sexuality and relationships.
There's a challenge to taboos whose existence doesn't make any sense.
There are questions about those taboos, questions about your identity and questions about what makes you "you" and what your actions make of you.
It all starts with an apparently simple but actually quite complicated issue: when does a queer person stop being a virgin? What does and does not constitute as "sex" for them?
And, most importantly, does it even matter?
Patrick Ness takes that issue and weaves it into a story that is meta and fiction and friendship and laughs and tears and, as always, creates something brilliant that is life and gives life.
Throughout almost the entire book, I was feeling sick to my stomach, nauseous, disgusted and angry at how far fear can push people, scare them into being the worst human beings, harmful to themselves and to others.
And yet... and yet.
Hidden between the lines, peaking from the pages... there's a tender care.
There's loneliness, that desperate search to find a place where you belong.
There's a need for someone that will understand what you're feeling and who you are while being terrified of showing and being who you truly are.
There's humor.
There's a challenge to heteronormative ideas of sexuality and relationships.
There's a challenge to taboos whose existence doesn't make any sense.
There are questions about those taboos, questions about your identity and questions about what makes you "you" and what your actions make of you.
It all starts with an apparently simple but actually quite complicated issue: when does a queer person stop being a virgin? What does and does not constitute as "sex" for them?
And, most importantly, does it even matter?
Patrick Ness takes that issue and weaves it into a story that is meta and fiction and friendship and laughs and tears and, as always, creates something brilliant that is life and gives life.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying and Homophobia
Moderate: Outing