Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Noah’s Song
SERIES: Port Haven #1
AUTHOR: Jaclyn Osborn
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 268 Pages
RELEASE DATE: August 30, 2017
BLURB:
Noah Derwin knows what it’s like to be different. Being a seventeen-year-old kid in high school with blue hair, piercings, a mostly all black wardrobe, and an obsession with zombies and video games, he doesn’t exactly blend in. But he never wanted to. His two dads raised him to always stay true to himself.
Bastian Hunter prefers structure and predictability. Suffering from a rare disease, every day is a challenge for him, and he prepares for the future by excelling academically and denying who he really is. Everything changes when he meets Noah, the unpredictable variable in the equation he’s built his life around, and feelings he’s hid for so long begin to surface.
Being gay in high school isn’t exactly rainbows and butterflies, and Noah has definitely faced his fair share of bullies. Moving to Port Haven, Oregon opens up new possibilities for him, and he starts falling for the quiet, brown-eyed boy from his English class. Too bad the attraction is one-sided… or is it?
REVIEW:
As soon as I read the blurb for this book, I knew it was for me. I love young adult stories, and this is definitely a young adult story. If you aren’t a fan of teenage drama, then this book probably won’t be for you. Having said that, I hate to tell anyone not to read this because I absolutely loved it.
Noah is a kickass, take no prisoners, I’m proud of who I am, seventeen year old. He’s obsessed with art and video games, and he’s mad about his family. He loves his dads like crazy, and he even loves his brother, Jace, though Jace doesn’t seem to even like Noah anymore. When Noah spots sweet, nerdy Bastian Hunter on the first day at his new school, it doesn’t take him long to recognize shy Bas as “his person”. But Bas isn’t allowed to be gay, his parents told him so. And with the health problems he already has to deal with every day, losing his parents isn’t something he’s ready to face.
I went into this story expecting something light and cutesy, but that was not at all what I got. Well, there were certainly parts that were light and cutesy and humorous and fun. But the story had so much more depth that that. The story is told from Noah’s perspective, and he is such a deep kid. At times he’s insecure and unsure, then he’ll act in a way that shows he really has his shit together. However, it wasn’t jarring or unbelievable. He was simply a seventeen-year-old boy, and the author did a brilliant job of portraying him as such. Noah also suffers from depression and anxiety and had a past that provided further explanation to his more mature characteristics. Bas, though he is our second main character, doesn’t play as large a role in the story as Noah, is also an extremely interesting character. I’m guessing the author did a lot of homework of Bastian’s illness, and it was an interesting addition to the storyline.
What was truly brilliant about this story, though, was the huge cast of secondary characters. The dads were my absolute favourite! I actually wish there was a story about these two getting together. As well as both boys parents, we have Noah’s brother, Jace, the jockish manwhore who does and says horrible things in his desperation to fit in and be “normal”. I actually liked Jace – but others might not. Then there were Noah’s friends, Bastian’s friends, including the whole drama club and some cool teachers. And the author juggled then all around the pages in a way that made enjoyably perfect sense. I think the author did a great job developing Port Haven, hopefully in particular, the high school in Port Haven, as a setting for future stories.
If you like your young adult stories with rather emotional overtones then this might be just your thing. It was certainly mine.
RATING: 
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