Diana Reads: Bill Konigsberg

Openly Straight and Honestly Ben by Bill Konigsberg

Is this really a book review or just some thoughts I had while reading these books? Do I have any overall thoughts and conclusions? The closest you’ll get is my goodreads stars (which I occasionally forget to put up) I'm also not really going to describe an entire plot synopsis for both books because I hate reading plot synopses in book reviews. Also, I guess there will be spoilers.

Sometimes I come across a YA coming of age novel and think to myself, only YA can tell this story. Which is to say, only a 17 year old would make this plot work.
 

Rafe in Openly Straight is a good kid with a bad idea. A part of me gets that he wants to escape being labeled as ‘the gay kid’, and to go somewhere new and try being someone new. I get wanting to be free of labels, just being known as Rafe and not by his sexuality.
 

Everyone can relate to that feeling of wanting to be appreciated for who we are and not some obvious, easily identifiable marker that may or may not be offensive.
 

Rafe has two problems; he is in high school, and he thinks he can escape labels in high school. High school is the place where one of my friends was called Chunk for four years for eating Chunk Tuna at lunch one day. It’s four years of dumbass labels.
 

This experiment, of course, does not work out in the end for Rafe, but it gave me some interesting questions to think about:

Is sexual orientation a defining feature of a person or just ‘a’ feature?
Is it only defining if that person is queer?
When someone accepts their queerness does it mean they must come out to everyone they know?
What does it mean if they don't?
 

I don’t have solid answers to this and a lot of it is personal. There is no right or wrong way to come out. So many factors of environment, personal mentality, and general maturity all come into play. I still like thinking about those questions and seeing how different answers could play out via Rafe.

Do I think Rafe was wrong to want to hide his homosexuality in a new environment? No, no matter what reason. It’s really his choice. Was it wrong that he hide it from Ben when they clearly were beginning to have intimate relations? Yes, that was a mistake. But generally I try not to judge my 17 year old narrators too harshly on their ability to make reasonable decisions.

Which brings me to Honestly Ben. I love Ben and all I wanted was to jump into the book and just be there for the kid. Also, while Ben never admits to being bi in the novel (and a part of me would never warn to slap a label on him that he wouldn’t want) another part of me seriously wants more YA bisexual MCs, so I will take what I can get.

Ben’s story is also more complex because he constantly struggles with who he is and what the people around him expect from him. From family that doesn’t want anything queer, to friends that try to shove him into a queer label he really isn’t ready for, to a whole host of other academic and emotional stresses.

Though, honestly, the part I could connect with the most is his feelings of not being able to talk about any of this with anyone. Not to say he has no close friends or queer friends (which include other people than Rafe), but the struggle to express himself devolves into just saying nothing. A truly introverted problem I know well.

I love you, Ben, and I just want you to know I’m here for you.