We had a wonderful holiday celebration dinner at our last meeting, and
great discussions of our books. We started with the novel, openly straight
(sic) by Bill Konigsberg. Two people really liked it a lot, and thought that it portrayed
Rafe's struggles in a good way as he explored getting rid of the label, "the gay
kid." A couple of people didn't enjoy it at all because of the 'kidspeak' which
they found difficult to understand and which they felt got in the way of the
story. None of us particularly loved the way Rafe's parents were portrayed -- it
just seemed that they were too, too cloying and positive, and not at all
realistic. We all agreed that it wasn't the best literary writing ever, but that
it was certainly very accessible to YA readers, and that kids of that age could
certainly relate to what Rafe was going through; it could either possibly mirror
their own situations, OR they could learn something about someone who was
different. We also agreed that it was probably difficult for a group of
heterosexual women to have any kind of an accurate idea of how Rafe really felt,
even though the author created scenes and situations to give us something to
think about.
