Boy meets boy

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan (813L57922b) is the type of teen novel that has been a long time in coming. It's written to be a teen novel with a gay theme, not a Gay Teen Novel. The main character, Paul, has parents who are understanding and supportive. He goes to a high school where the captain of the football team is a cross-dresser named Infinite Darlene. He lives in a town where he can hold hands publicly with his boyfriend and where the local Boy Scouts have renamed themselves the "Joy Scouts" after renouncing the national organization's gay-unfriendly policies. On his website, Levithan says he is "often asked if the book is a work of fantasy or a work of reality, and the answer is right down the middle - it's about where we're going, and where we should be." He also says he wanted to write "a book about gay teens that doesn't conform to the old norms about gay teens in literature (i.e. it has to be about a gay uncle, or a teen who gets beaten up for being gay, or about outcasts who come out and find they're still outcasts, albeit outcasts with their outcastedness in common.)"

So, what you've got here is a great story line, filled with all the usual teen angst, but peppered with enough humor, sarcasm, and over-the-top situations to keep it from taking itself too seriously. And who can resist a well-told tale about new love, the inevitable complications and misunderstandings that follow, and then (SPOILER ALERT!) the sweetness of getting back together?