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JessicaRobyn

Reading Robyn

I am a lover of libraries, a reader of everything, a girl easily swayed by pretty pictures, and overall just your average, nerdy fairy princess.

 

2013 is the year I'm finally keeping up a regular reading blog Reading Robyn! There I post extended versions of my GR reviews so be sure to check that out!

 

I always seem to be on the move having lived in seven cities and counting in my nineteen years. I'm not on the run from the law as many have assumed (at least I don't think so), but moving around has given me an appreciation for how places make stories and people make memories. While change is inevitable, books are the friends that I take with me from place to place. They comforted me when I was sick, they push me to continue to learn and grow into myself, and most importantly they opened me up to the possibilities of living in thousands of places all at once.

 

I primarily read YA fiction, as well as a lot of graphic novels and manga. However, I tend to be this combination of odd reads, so expect the unexpected!

 

Cheesy Life Quote: "In this world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself." - Frantz Fanon

Boy Meets Boy

Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan This review can also be read on my blog Reading RobynBoy Meets Boy starts off as a novel of what ifs. What if there was a place where acceptance was the norm? What if not-normal was the norm? What if what you're left with is just the extraordinary? That place exists in this novel. The setting of Boy Meets Boy is a central part of the novel and reminds me a lot of the worlds that we see in cartoons. This place is colourful, eccentric, and fascinating. We all wish we could live there, not only because it is a place where all things seem to belong, but because this is the place where everyday things are transformed into amazing things. It seems like an interesting concept in theory, but even I was surprised how well it all works. The setting is an ideal, but the circumstances in the story are not always so. In Boy Meets Boy, a boy (Paul) meets another boy (Noah) and they start to fall for each other. What makes this worth reading is that normally in LGBTQ YA this meeting of hearts ends badly, not because of the relationship itself, but because of the society we live in. LGBTQ is normally about the realization of sexuality and the oppression of it, all of which are subjects handled in Boy Meets Boy, but here the book treats its characters like they really are just part of contemporary romance. There are love triangles, mistakes made, ex-boyfriends, a school dance, tested friendships, and dates! I think this is the first time I've read a LGBTQ book where the main character actually goes out on dates and has a dating history. And that in itself is what makes this so special! It's one thing to handle what it means to discover your sexuality, but it's an entirely different thing to be past that point, to have reached an understanding of it, and then go on to live your life as it demands to be lived. David Levithan is an amazing writer. That is just a fact. He knows how to take characters and make them people that you know are out there somewhere. What impressed me the most is that he could have easily taken the fantasy of this story too far, but he never does. He kept his writing planted in reality just enough to show the prejudice, to show the dark side, to show what gay teenager go through, without losing any of the humour and sunshine that makes this story fun.My first experience with Levithan was in [b:Will Grayson, Will Grayson|6567017|Will Grayson, Will Grayson|John Green|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347192518s/6567017.jpg|6759965]. I figured since I hadn't read anything else by him that Boy Meets Boy would be an appropriate place to start. [b:Will Grayson, Will Grayson|6567017|Will Grayson, Will Grayson|John Green|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347192518s/6567017.jpg|6759965] is one of my go to recommendations and if you like that book you will most definitely like this one. The style is different, the tone is not. Boy Meets Boy ends up being a truly touching and upbeat novel about what it's really like when boy meets boy. It's just that simple.