Reviewed by Annika
TITLE: Trailer Trash
AUTHOR: Marie Sexton
NARRATOR: John Solo
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 9 hours, 43 minutes
RELEASE DATE: October 19, 2016
BLURB:
It’s 1986, and what should have been the greatest summer of Nate Bradford’s life goes sour when his parents suddenly divorce. Now, instead of spending his senior year in his hometown of Austin, Texas, he’s living with his father in Warren, Wyoming, population 2,833 (and Nate thinks that might be a generous estimate). There’s no swimming pool, no tennis team, no mall—not even any MTV. The entire school’s smaller than his graduating class back home, and in a town where the top teen pastimes are sex and drugs, Nate just doesn’t fit in.
Then Nate meets Cody Lawrence. Cody’s dirt-poor, from a broken family, and definitely lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Nate’s dad says Cody’s bad news. The other kids say he’s trash. But Nate knows Cody’s a good kid who’s been dealt a lousy hand. In fact, he’s beginning to think his feelings for Cody go beyond friendship.
Admitting he might be gay is hard enough, but between small-town prejudices and the growing AIDS epidemic dominating the headlines, a town like Warren, Wyoming, is no place for two young men to fall in love.
REVIEW:
Trailer Trash isn’t your typical YA story. Sure you have the cliques, the bullying and the need to fit in, but that’s where the comparison ends. This is not a piece of fluff, it’s not a happy story of self-discovery or coming of age, nor is it overly dramatic teenage angst. Oh, there is angst, and a lot of it, but it’s not the kind you typically associate with teenagers. It’s set back in 1986, in Warren, a small town in Wyoming. It’s in the middle of nowhere, there’s no movie theatre, no MTV and no shopping mall. So for Nate, moving here was the worst thing that could ever happen to him, banished from everything he knew and loved just because his parents decided to get divorced.
Then Nate meets Cody. A boy his own age who’d grown up in Warren and knew the rules. He knew that their friendship could only last over the summer, because come fall Nate would be swept up by the Grove kids and taught that people like Cody, dirt poor and from the wrong side of the tracks was not worth anything. They were the punching bags and the laughing stocks of the town, and they were to blame for every bad thing that happened. Prejudices, homophobia, slut-shaming and you name it was so present in this book, and Sexton handled it all really well. It’s wasn’t for the sake of causing drama, it all fit the story, fit the time and the place, the people.
I have to take a moment to mention Logan and how much I loved this brave boy. He didn’t care about cliques or social statuses, he could move freely from one to the next and I admire that he really did that, not staying with the popular kids. He truly stood up for others, for Cody and I loved their friendship. We need more Logans in this world. There’s something about these quiet stoic people, accepted by everyone, that really have the power to excite change. They create ripples that spread far beyond their own small circle.
There was a lot of hurt in this book, we really saw humanity from their bad side. Fearing anyone different, hell-bent to bring them down. How bullying was (and sadly still is) normalised, it was okay to beat on and talk about Cody just because he was poor, just because he happened to be gay. So what if his mother didn’t have the most respectable of jobs, she did the best she could to put a roof over their heads and food on the table. It was clear that she would do anything for Cody, anything to protect him, she loved him fiercely. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that this book isn’t pretty, it can be harsh and cruel and painful, but underneath all of that there is hope. Like the stars lighting up the darkest of night skies.
Nate and Cody’s story wasn’t easy, they had to fight for everything, even themselves. Because being gay during the 80’s where AIDS started to spread uncontrollably, with the stigma that came with it, the death sentence wasn’t easy for anyone. You could feel how much it scared them and not only them, but the people close to them as well. But their story also showed us that there is hope, and fighting for what you want might bring you the whole world.
This story was performed by John Solo and I think it might have been one of my favourite books by him to date. There was something about it that really took me back to 1986, it felt like I was there seeing the small town, the gas station where they met up, the fields. Feeling the barbs, the kicks and the loathing from their peers. How much Nate wanted to fit in, and how much of an outsider he really was. Solo captured both Nate and Cody, their wants and needs, their feelings. He understood the core of him and made the listener feel the same. But the first person that really got to me was Nate’s dad in the very beginning. Solo made his feelings so plain to hear, how much he wanted a fresh start for his son, how much he loved him and how he’d do anything to protect him. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he loved his son and wanted the best for him, something that Solo made clear from the start.
Trailer Trash isn’t an easy listen. At times it’s brutal and very painful. But it’s also filled with so much love and hope and if you haven’t already it’s a book you must experience for yourself.
RATING: 
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