Reviewed by Stephen K.

TITLE: The Suicidal Peanut

AUTHOR: Matthew J. Metzger

PUBLISHER: Queerteen Press

LENGTH: 160 Pages

RELEASE DATE: September 20^th , 2015

BLURB:

Life’s not easy when your mum’s nuts, your uncle is becoming your aunt, and one of your crushes could — and probably would — break your face if he found out how you felt about him.

That’s Tab’s life, though, malevolent gods and all. His text-flirting with Demi, the brother of his best friend, is going nowhere: Demi already has a boyfriend and anyway, who dates their best friend’s twin? But then, the pining after Nick is going nowhere either, because Nick probably likes gay-bashing on Friday nights for fun. He’s gorgeous, but he’s dangerous, and Tab knows better than that.

So what’s a bit of harmless flirting, when one is taken and the other is straight? It’s just a bit of fun.

That is until Demi is suddenly single, and Nick is not looking as straight and scary as he was before.

REVIEW:

Tab, the main character, is a bit of a hard luck, “Billy No Mates.” He’s fay enough to have been bullied in school – when he wasn’t kept home by his hippy dippy mom to work on some loony project. His mom has since been “sectioned” (committed to a long term mental health care facility.) Tab is living with his uncle above his uncle’s boxing gym, where Tab also works the desk.

His only real “mate” is a boisterous gal pal Maxi. She’s attending the same art school that Tab does. Maxi is set on hooking Tab up with her gay twin bother, Demi, but Tab is smitten with Nick, a straight bloke from the gym that he’s been crushing on. Besides, Demi is still stuck on his disinterested boyfriend.

Tab has a charming pantheon of strange gods that he relies on to help him with his daily crises, but apparently gods with a following of exactly one hapless polytheistic loser aren’t all that effective. When it’s revealed partway through the story why Tab came to worship his own assortment of ineffectual minor deities, it’s actually quite sad, but sweet and poignant as well.

Tab is quite gifted in his art, but as with most seventeen year old virginal lads, he’s got no self-confidence. He’s pretty inept at pursuing relationships with either Demi or Nick. But when both start to seem more like real possibilities, Tab is faced with having to choose which to pursue. Something spotty seventeen year-olds are NOT good at.

As an observer it was fascinating to me to see poor Tab on the horns of the dilemma. Go after the sweet (and certainly safer) gay boy, or risk bodily damage and attempt something with most likely straight, but outrageously hot Nick. As both boys became more possible possibilities, the dramatic tension just kept escalating.

The ultimate way that that choice played out was satisfying. Seeing Tab get a happy ending was nice, but it WAS kind of a cheat.  Part of me really wished that the author had gone another way after setting up such a great dilemma.  Failing that, some additional foreshadowing suggesting the ultimate outcome might have made the ending we did get even more satisfying. That said, there were some indicators, and now that I know where the story heads I want to go back and re-read it.

There are a few additional points I’d like to make:

• I’d like to mention this book’s trans character, Aunt JuliKate. No surprise given that the author is trans, but it’s really nice to see a trans character portrayed as just another character. She’s involved in the story and the story is better for her presence but the tale is not about her. In many ways her normalcy (as compared to some the odder characters in the story) is refreshing.
• As a YA title, this story contains no graphical sex. In fact, we don’t even get a snog until almost the end of the story.
• This story mentions several instances of bullying, but that is almost exclusively off-page and should not be triggering

This was a quick, enjoyable read and surprisingly upbeat overall. Pretty much all of the characters were folks you’ll enjoy spending time with. Also any book that’s sufficiently engaging to immediately go back into the “must read” queue is pretty successful in my estimation. I recommend it.

RATING:

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