Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Openly Straight
SERIES: Openly Straight #1
AUTHOR: Bill Konigsberg
PUBLISHER: Arthur A. Levine Books
LENGTH: 339 Pages
RELEASE DATE: May 28th 2013
BLURB:
A funny, honest novel about being out, being proud … and being ready for something else.
Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He plays soccer. He’s won skiing prizes. He likes to write.
And, oh yeah, he’s gay. He’s been out since 8th grade, and he isn’t teased, and he goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. And while that’s important, all Rafe really wants is to just be a regular guy. Not that GAY guy. To have it be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time.
So when he transfers to an all-boys’ boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret — not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate breaking down. He meets a teacher who challenges him to write his story. And most of all, he falls in love with Ben … who doesn’t even know that love is possible.
This witty, smart, coming-out-again story will appeal to gay and straight kids alike as they watch Rafe navigate being different, fitting in, and what it means to be himself
REVIEW:
When Seamus Rafeal Goldberg, the only openly gay kid at his high school in Boulder, gets accepted at a prestigious all male Boston private school as a junior he decides to go back into the closet. Not because he’s been persecuted at his old school, far from it.
When queried about his name “Seamus,” a new teacher asks “Oh is your mother Irish?”
“Nope”
“Your father?”
Rafe acknowledges the tenor of the teacher’s question thinking
“This is Boulder. It could easily be two moms. Two Dads. A Dad, a Mom and an orangutan. Three Amish hipsters and a transgendered aboriginal Mermaid. ”
Not only is Boulder about as accepting a place as one could imagine, but Rafe’s parents are aging hippies who celebrate diversity in every way conceivable, and his mom is the President of the local PFLAG chapter. So why would Rafe want to re-enter the closet? Because he’s tired of the label. He wants to be something other than “the gay kid. ” He’d like to go without labels for a while.
His flying “under the radar” at his new school has it’s benefits, he’s suddenly popular and easily accepted by the jock contingent at his new school. He enjoys his new label-free life but he soon encounters problems when he meets Ben, one of the more cerebral of the jocks who somehow sees him differently.
The book is great in that it tells a coming out story from a fresh perspective, (Is that even possible?) especially when it draws a clear distinction between tolerance, acceptance, and celebration. Tolerance is the practice of “suffering people to be different” but clearly implies that they are somehow substandard. Acceptance is only marginally better in that “Acceptance is an affirmation that you’re good enough.” Celebration is really the only one of the three that recognizes that we are all better off for our differences and being different from the norm is often a good thing.
Not only does the book allow me to analyze the issues surrounding coming out from a fresh perspective, it introduced me to two new mixed drinks, “Frosted Ruskie Charms” (Lucky Charms in Vodka) and Plastic Screwdrivers, (Orange Sports Drink and Vodka). Now having read about them I can avoid them without ever suffering their most likely awful tastes and the ensuing hang-overs.
Rafe’s newly re-closeted status also allows us to enjoy having other familiar laments turned on their head. One of the openly gay students at Rafe’s new school asks about his sexual preference and he lies. The gay kid laments…”All the cute one are straight or married.”
The real conflict arises when Rafe realizes that by not being honest about his sexual preference he is in effect lying about an important part of himself. That soon complicates (and possibly endangers) even his most important new relationships.
Finally the book addresses an ever-present issue for teens, the feeling that they are constantly under observation. In this tale, Rafe eventually realizes that most of the time everyone else is paying attention though a filter of how what they’re observing affects them. “No one had really been looking at me all the time. Other than me.”
I’d highly recommend this book. Not only does it entertain and introduce us to some charming characters, it teaches the reader important lessons about self-acceptance… no, correction, make that self-celebration.
RATING: 
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