K. M. SoehnleinCritiques

Here's what I wrote in 2008 about this read: "Memorable, but distasteful due to rawness and explicitness. The world of gay boys and men, showcasing the easy promiscuity that existed before AIDS drove more caution into the gay community. Question, when does a boy (or girl) begin to realize that they are gay?"

I am not sure what a normal boy is, but I am sure that I was not one, at least not an average one. This book has an appeal with its central protagonist on a journey of discovery about himself - trying to find out what it means to be a "normal boy". The journey itself, the characters he meets, and his family become less and less interesting as the book proceeds. Perhaps the author tried to mix a few too many problems and in the process lost some of the focus on the central character, Robin MacKenzie. That explains, at least in part, why I did not find the novel satisfying.

Was surprised to like this as much as I did....Not sure what i was expecting, but what i got was a rather poignant tale of the late1970's suburban New Jersey teen-age sexual awakening of 13-year-old Robin Mackenzie....and that awakening is not necessarily a resolution. Having grown up in the 1970's, graduating from high school in 1979, the representation of suburban home-life, expected moral behavior was startlingly as i remembered it.....as was the mental turmoil so clearly captured as to what it is like to begin that journey to adulthood: fitting in (or not), sexual discovery, never seeming to live up to what is expected, peer rivalries, family rivalries, friendships and betrayals, hurt and deception, experimenting, going against your own principles to do things in order to seem to be more 'normal'......wow! it was like reliving that period of my life. I suppose the details were a bit more graphic than i expected, but the tone was certainly appropriate if the goal was to capture the goings on in the head of a teenage male struggling with his sexual identity. The tragic family event was also unexpected and allowed us to view the truly fragile nature of our family structures when confronted with the unexpected, but also to see where a dark page in our story can often be and opportunity for a new chapter. I enjoyed not knowing what was coming next, or how the relationships were going to resolve, and that unexpectedness certainly overcame the occasional sappy turns in the story...but then again, I'm probably not being fair....in my own life.....well, i guess i won't go there......All in all a good read that i plowed through very quickly and enjoyed, although the subject matter was completely relatable to my own story and time....cannot guarantee the same feel for those whose story is more removed....

17-year-old Todd Spicer builds a relationship with 13-year-old Robin MacKenzie. He welcomes him into his circle of older school friends in the New Jersey suburbs and invites him to parties. Robin is friends with Scott Schatz, another 13-year-old who had sex with Todd when he was aged 11. Todd seduces Robin.

This book started off as very readable novel about a thirteen-year-old boy in a specific time and place, but then ended up pushing him and his family through a traumatic event to the extent that it started to feel well over-the-top.½

I recently finished this novel on my Kindle as a distraction from all the academic reading and writing that accompanies the end of a semester. I consumed this novel almost in one fell swoop over the course of three days. That in itself is a positive review.

I can't speak for all gay men, but I know that for me coming to terms with my homosexuality as a teenager was one of the most profoundly emotional times of my life. It was both the best and worst of times and entirely unforgettable.

K. M. Soehnlein brought me back to those days and if you are a gay man then you may very well feel the same way.

This novel follows the life of Robin, a thirteen year old kid from the New Jersey suburbs who skipped a year and is just starting high school at the beginning of the novel. The story takes place in 1978, but the story is more than just a product of it's historical setting and issues dealt with in the novel are generally timeless. The novel follows the next 5 months of his life, a time when very dramatic changes are happening in his family and he is just beginning to deal with his sexuality.

Two friends play important roles in his newfound interest in guys, one four years older than him and one his age from a bad household. The two arcs of these relationships make up the gay backbone of the story and were fascinating for me and well handled by Mr. Soehnlein.

Robin's family plays the a very important role in the novel. The issues Robin and his family are dealing with at home are just as dramatic and fascinating as Robin's discovery that he is gay (though, to be clear, this is not a novel about coming out, more just a novel about the self-realization of one's sexuality). I found his family members to be rich characters on their own right and Robin's relationship with his mother, father and sister were deftly handled.

While the main draw for me was the story line, Soehnlein did come up with some beautiful sentences. Though the dialogue was at times not that convincing. In the end these issues didn't matter because I instantly connected with Robin's life and if you are gay you might feel the same way.

This novel follows Robin, from The World of Normal Boys, in that phase in life when you change from boy to man; only that Robin has already had that change, he is not a normal 20 years old guy, and so his summer spent waiting tables in an upscale Philadelphia restaurant is not careless and light as for any other normal boy.

I wondered why K.M. Soehnlein chose to set the story in the middle of the ’80, and other than the obvious reason that, being a sequel of a previous story set in the same period, it had to be, I think there are also not so obvious reasons, like, for example, the fact that 20 years old boys in the ’80 were maybe still “innocent”, or at least more than today. There are social tensions that now are almost non-existent, or at least not openly acknowledged; AIDS was still an almost unknown threat, still the “gay cancer”, if you were not gay it was not your problem; having a interracial relationship was still almost a taboo, something daring and brazen.

The story follows both Robin than Ruby, and they are at two different moments in life, but to both of them is asked to take a decision, an important one for their future. Robin is living an adult life, he has a steady boyfriend, plans for the future, and obligations; Ruby instead is on the brink of adulthood, still a teenager but with the urge, and the desire, to leave that part of her life behind. In a way Ruby wants to be an adult and Robin instead wants to re-catch his lost teen years. Robin is dumped by his grown boyfriend Peter, but I think he is not so much upset by that; he has George in his life, his long lasting best friend George, someone who was not ready to be something more when they were teenagers, but who is now all grown up, and a living temptation. Robin wants to have another chance with George, but not in a serious way, he wants the carelessly feelings of having a boyfriend, of going and making out, without the oppressive weight of “adult” sex, with the danger of the virus.

In a way, this is not a coming of age story, since Robin doesn’t want to take that step into adulthood, he wants more time, he wants to enjoy the thoughtlessness of having a relationship with someone like George, someone he can trust, since George was always there, always a good friend, and for sure not someone who wants from Robin more than Robin is ready to give. Even with sex, Robin and George are behaving more like teenagers than adults, while the real teenager, Ruby, is testing the water with real sex. At some point Robin will be ready to go further on, maybe with George, maybe with someone else (I hope not, I think George is good for Robin), and maybe Ruby will regret those years when everything was still so scaring and unknown.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0758232187/?tag=elimyrevandra-20

A parte i dettagli su come fanno sesso i gay, che l'autore poteva risparmiarsi, è un bel romanzo, ricco di spunti di riflessione

The mind and behavior of a teenage boy coming to grips with his sexuality is so realistic in this book that I found myself understanding myself better! Often I felt like I was reading about myself when I was a new teenager (and that was a long, long time ago!). The book leaves many questions unresolved - very realistic, very lifelike! I highly recommend this book.

Left me wanting more. A little disconcerting but mainly because it is so realistic, IMO.