“Boy Meets Boy”, by David Levithan

Imagine that you live in a suburban town where the gays outnumber the straights; Imagine that your kindergarten teacher wrote on your progress report, “probably gay,” and meant that as a positive thing; Imagine that the high school quarterback is a drag queen who is also the Homecoming Queen.  This is what David Levithan does in “Boy Meets Boy”, where our protagonist Paul falls in love with his first, but for a change, being gay is not a problem for him.  The plot is pretty typical romance – boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy gets boy back.  Meanwhile, he’s also dealing with gossip queen Infinite Darlene, his best friend Tony coming out to his parents, and his friend Joni who seems to be falling for the wrong guy.  And it all takes place in a utopian version of suburbia, which alternates between being way too cheesy and being refreshingly upbeat.

I’m kind of ambivalent about this book – there are lots of good things about it, but there are also lots of annoying things about it.  When compared to any of Julie Anne Peters’ books, “Boy Meets Boy” is, in fact, refreshingly upbeat.  Paul and Noah get to fall in love and experience high school without having to be kicked out of their houses, or shunned by their community, or even spend hours of introspection on figuring out whether they’re gay or not, as if it matters.  For them, it doesn’t matter – everybody loves everybody in this novel.  It’s nice to read a gay romance that’s not also a coming out story.  But therein lies the problem, the other side of the coin – Levithan’s utopian little town is grating after a while, and the upbeat tone of the novel starts to feel dull.  If the book was set in a regular town, I wouldn’t believe that these kids have such an easy time.  But the commentary made by setting it in a clearly fictional town is, while somewhat necessary, irritating after a while.  It was kind of like how, after about 3 seasons of The West Wing, I just wanted Aaron Sorkin to shut up, even though I agreed with him.

Book talk hook: I would tout this as a traditional romance, saying that it has all the swoon-worthy elements of a traditional romance, only it’s a little different.

Levithan, David (2005). Boy Meets Boy.  NY: Knopf. 192 pages.