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A white, gay teen living in 1973 Missouri
begins a life-changing relationship.
Jonathan has asthma, a deadbeat dad,
and one friend—biracial (black and white) Starla. He suffers homophobic slurs and
physical bullying at school while secretly—and willingly—attending conversion
therapy sessions with harmful side effects. Jonathan copes by retreating into his imagination, where he speaks to his idol, Ziggy Stardust (Jonathan feels like “some space oddity who’s landed
here on earth”). When Starla leaves for the summer, Jonathan connects with Web, an Oglala Lakota boy from out of town who also endures slurs and
violence. When they move beyond friendship to something more, Web
helps open Jonathan’s eyes to what his gut has been telling him all along: Being
gay isn’t wrong. Readers will be immersed in Jonathan’s close first-person
narration, characterized by his own lingo and tendency to escape into his
own head. Debut author Brandon deftly incorporates historical events and
realities, including the criminalization of homosexuality, the Vietnam War, Watergate,
the occupation of Wounded Knee, and police brutality against Native people. Web is a rich character with a backstory of his own,
though both he and Starla do all the heavy lifting when it comes to educating
Jonathan about contemporary social justice movements that he, focused inward on
his traumatic home life and own identity crisis, has remained ignorant
of.
A poignant depiction of a boy’s
journey to accepting his gay identity despite the odds. (author’s note) (Historical
fiction. 14-adult)
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