Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  Everything I Know

AUTHOR:  Josh Lanyon

PUBLISHER:  Just Joshin

LENGTH:  93 pages

BLURB:  

Connor loves teaching. He loves working with kids, he loves feeling like he’s making a difference. And the kids — and parents — seem to love him. Until the afternoon he makes a small error in judgment, and an angry father’s thoughtless comments start the kind of rumor that destroys careers. And lives.

Now everything Connor thought he knew about himself and his world is in doubt. But sometimes help comes from the most unexpected direction.

REVIEW:  

Now I want you to brace yourself. You braced? Ok…

Nobody dies in this book.  Not even the bunny.

But this is Josh Lanyon I hear you cry (in a totally metaphysical we all share each other’s pain kind of way).

I know right? I can’t remember the last Lanyon I read that does not involve corpses, capers, or just downright skullduggery.  But nonetheless, Everything I Know is just a good ol’ fashioned story of boy meets boy, boy gets fired because of boy, boy rages at boy, boy begs forgiveness, boy thinks it over, boy decides yes he will date boy, boy falls for boy….

(Am I the only one thinking that the word ‘boy’ has somehow lost all meaning and we are now in some alternate universe where ‘boy’ does not exist and that the longer we look at this word we find it odd and unsettling….yes? ok then.)

Despite my total break from reality there, I should let you know that I really enjoyed this. Despite the fact that there were no dead bodies.  In my head Josh Lanyon and Mysteries are one and the same.  Which I put down to the fact that he does them so damn well.  It is all his fault, you see.  But clearly he knows how to write other stuff.  Good stuff. Great stuff.  Stuff that makes me want to cry and rage and go back and give a million dollars to every teacher I ever had, because how they didn’t just snap one day and go on a killing spree cause they are surrounded by such bureaucratic idiocy, not to mention the kids…(ok, breathe….just breathe).  I’m just saying, this book was good.

Conner is a good person, a great teacher, and while having moments of weakness in regards to hooking up with his total douche of an ex, does not deserve the crap that gets thrown at him during this book.  He loves his job.  I don’t know how he can do it.  One little kid would wig me out, let alone twenty, but he loves the kids and the teaching.  In my eyes the man is a freakin superhero.  But one little misspoken word, and it all comes crashing down.  One sentence said in anger and fear and frustration, and his life becomes a nightmare.

Because…What kind of normal grown man makes a career out of hanging around little kids?

Oh, I wanted to hate Wes for saying this.  Despite understanding why he did it.  But, gods, was I ready to take him down when he said it.

Too many parts of our culture, our world, associate ‘gay’ with evil monster.  And throw children into the mix, and you’ve got an evil monster that hides under your kid’s bed.  God how I despise this.  But it is there, part of our social psyche, nonetheless.

How do I know?

Because I thought that once upon a time.  Back in what I would consider my bad ol’ days.  Before common sense and just plain human empathy kicked in.  Before I thought my brain might be useful for something more than storing bible verses.  You have no idea the depth of my shame for thinking this.  For making monsters out of normal men and women, just because they were different from everything I was taught.

I am uncomfortable with parts of this book, because of what they mean, because of the damage they can do.  I am uncomfortable because this topic doesn’t come up all that much.  Because who wants to talk about it?  Except if we never talk about it, it only becomes another monster hiding in our closets.  Connor’s life gets taken apart by one sentence.  One untrue, malicious thought–though it was not intended to do as much harm as it did.  And because of it. Because of the fear, because of the stigma, because of the school’s administration being swayed by money and fear, Connor doesn’t even get a say in what happens to him.

But…don’t worry.  This book is not all doom and gloom.  There is a good romance, that is probably all the better because it is tied up in all that other stuff.  While I would have loved to have made Wes grovel some more…there was enough there that by the time the book ended I was cheering both Wes and Connor on.

And the kids, despite my whole phobia, were adorable.

And wow…this review went on a lot longer than I intended.  So let me just say that I really enjoyed this book.  Josh Lanyon is still pretty much a autobuy for me. And I recommend you read this.  It is good.  Really good.

Even with the lack of dead bodies.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS:

Just Joshin

Amazon

ARe