BOOK REVIEW: Openly Straight

  Openly Straight

In Openly Straight, a young adult book by Bill Konigsberg, Rafe, a Colorado teen, has been out of the closet since eighth grade. He doesn’t get much flak from his schoolmates for it, but he is known as “the gay kid” and this has repercussions socially. He’s athletic and reasonably smart, and just wants to be one of the guys. He convinces his parents to send him to a boarding school in New England where he can start fresh and no one has to know him as anything in particular.

At his new school, he simply doesn’t talk about his sexuality, and people make assumptions that this good looking kid who can play soccer well and immediately fits in with the popular crowd is straight. He likes this feeling of inclusion so much that

It is an interesting book, chock full of what my kids call “the feels,” and it makes you think about our assumptions about people and labels, and whether we should turn a blind eye to our differences or celebrate them out in the open. It is not graphic, necessarily, but there are some male-male romantic scenes, so if you’re squicky about that, be warned.

To read more about this book, or to buy a copy, click the handy-dandy Amazon link below.