Reviewed by Stephen K.
TITLE: Jay’s Gay Agenda
SERIES: Jay’s Gay Agenda #1
AUTHOR: Jason June
PUBLISHER: Harper Audio
NARATOR: Mark Sanderlin
LENGTH: 9 hours 5 minutes
RELEASE DATE: June 1st , 2021
BLURB:
There’s one thing Jay Collier knows for sure—he’s a statistical anomaly as the only out gay kid in his small rural Washington town. While all his friends can’t stop talking about their heterosexual hookups and relationships, Jay can only dream of his own firsts, compiling a romance to-do list of all the things he hopes to one day experience—his Gay Agenda.
Then, against all odds, Jay’s family moves to Seattle and he starts his senior year at a new high school with a thriving LGBTQIA+ community. For the first time ever, Jay feels like he’s found where he truly belongs. But as Jay begins crossing items off his list, he’ll soon be torn between his heart and his hormones, his old friends and his new ones . . . because after all, life and love don’t always go according to plan
REVIEW:
Jay’s Gay Agenda is really Jay’s Nine Hour Monologue. This is a first person tale told in first person by a hormonal young gay boy transplanted from rural Riverton Washington to a high School in Seattle.
Main character Jay is a charming if somewhat confused guy. But Jay’s constant, frequently angsty, inner monologue made the early part of this something that might be best enjoyed a chapter or two at a sitting. Narrator Mark Sanderlin does the narration in a perfectly credible adolescent voice, but it gets to be a bit whiny when listened to in long stretches.
Jay starts as “the gay kid”at his school in rural Eastern Washington State, and while it was not as bad as in decades past, he was very much alone in his feelings. Relocating to Seattle is like he won the lottery, a big city with plenty of liberal people and even boys his age into other boys.
Jay quickly conceives of the titular Jay’s Gay Agenda. A gay-centric “to do list” of sorts detailing what Jay hopes to achieve. It ranges from the romantic, #1 Meet another gay kid, somewhere, anywhere, please. to the randy #8 Lose my Virginity. While this was a fast and mostly fun read, this agenda gets repeatedly revised and items are amended, added and checked off.
But… and this is a big but, this started life as a text based book. Jay is a list maker (and reviser) While I’m sure the continually revised list works well in the print edition, it gets incredibly repetitive in the audio-book version. (There had to be a better way of presenting this) I swore that, by the end, if I had to listen to one more revision to Jay’s Gay Agenda list, I’d have to hunt down the lad & strangle him.
Also it was a bit odd that we finally have a gay teen where everything is going so well for him only to have his character concerned with the girl he left behind whose life is falling apart. It’s odd having the gay teen’s biggest dilemma being how to be himself and still be a good friend to a now distant BFF. This is only part of the morale dilemma at the heart of this great coming of age story. And while I’m sure that the way that “girl back home” problem is resolved is very “feminist friendly,” to me it felt like a bit of a cop out.
Other than what’s already been covered, I could tell you about Digi-hips, adorkable dates, and football player fashionistas but it’s better you read about that yourselves. There as also some really enjoyable secondary characters. There’s Max, an out gay boy that sees himself as gay but loves wearing women’s fashions. There’s Albert the cute gay dork that is Jay’s first encounter with another gay guy. There’s Reese who initially seems seems to be the gay Mr. Freeze. And on and on. After reading about the “group hang” at Pike Place my guess was that Reese might become Jay’s main squeeze… Boy was I wrong.
As a bit of a stats geek myself, I immediately recognized that Jay’s understanding of what Regression Analysis was a bit wrong; but then, he’s young and much of what Jay thinks he understands is wrong as well. But he has a disarming charm and his not recognizing Proud Mary choreography, can be forgiven as easily as when a partly trained puppy has an over-excitement accident. Unfortunately some of the mistakes he makes later are tougher to forgive. And some parts bring a whole new meaning to the term half-assed.
Overall this is a great, romantic YA novel (though there is some sex involved) As a first person account, it should really work well in audio, and apart from the repetitive list aspect, it does. I’m torn between recommending the text version or the audio version. Both have their merits but that re-reading of lists gaff is an almost unforgivable misjudgment.
RATING: 
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