Review: HIM by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

Title: Him
Author: Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy
Genre: New Adult / MxM
Publisher: Rennie Road Books (Self-Published)
Published: August 2nd 2015
Page Number: 360
Rating: 5/5

Summary:

They don’t play for the same team. Or do they?
Jamie Canning has never been able to figure out how he lost his closest friend. Four years ago, his tattooed, wise-cracking, rule-breaking roommate cut him off without an explanation. So what if things got a little weird on the last night of hockey camp the summer they were eighteen? It was just a little drunken foolishness. Nobody died.

Ryan Wesley’s biggest regret is coaxing his very straight friend into a bet that pushed the boundaries of their relationship. Now, with their college teams set to face off at the national championship, he’ll finally get a chance to apologize. But all it takes is one look at his longtime crush, and the ache is stronger than ever.

Jamie has waited a long time for answers, but walks away with only more questions—can one night of sex ruin a friendship? If not, how about six more weeks of it? When Wesley turns up to coach alongside Jamie for one more hot summer at camp, Jamie has a few things to discover about his old friend...and a big one to learn about himself.

REVIEW

STOP! Put down the book you're currently reading and listen to me because you guys are going to be dying to pick this book up after you've heard how incredible it was. Because trust me, HIM is my favourite book of the year.

I'm a massive New Adult fan, I love being able to connect to the characters because they're around my age group, and I love being able to relate to certain things that they're going through, so when I saw such a huge amount of praise for HIM, I decided to take the plunge and bought myself a copy.

I'd normally stray away from M/M Romance, not because I'm homophobic (I happen to be gay myself) but because I hate it when all authors can do is write stereotypical characters that only end up insulting us gay people because they obviously didn't do their research. There is nothing stereotypical about HIM though, the characters were so real, honest, so fleshed out that I felt like they were actual real people. Wes is one hundred percent gay and has known so since he was 13 years old. Being able to see how he felt really made me connect to him a lot more because I went through the same thing when I was 10; having your first crush, not being entirely sure why you're attracted to guys instead of girls. It's such a confusing time in anyone's life, but finally knowing so and having to keep it a secret is just so darn tough. It's like carrying a million hardback books on your shoulders. It's painful and thoroughly drains you, consumes your entire mind.

What I loved more than the characters themselves was the transition from their friendship to exploration to their relationship. It's not done quickly in a chapter, but it is continuously worked on and I honestly thought I was seeing a very fleshed out relationship between them both.

Every New Adult novel tends to have sex scenes in them and honestly HIM easily had some of the hottest ones, and I'm not saying that because it's 2 men on each other and I'm gay. I say it because the sex scenes were rehashed, I didn't feel like I had just read the same sex scene after each other because each scene was completely fresh, new. And the sex wasn't used just for sex, but for the development of their characters and relationship. I was enamoured by it all.

What makes this book my favourite of 2015 for me is that every single page was perfect for me. The authors didn't shy away from anything, they wrote what they thought was right and the outcome was this fantastically, sexy novel that I will continuously reread until I get a sequel too.

Buy the book (Amazon) | Buy the book (Book Depository)

Gay in YA

Should Gay in YA be allowed?

 

There's always been a lot of controversy whether or not authors should write LGBT characters. Some authors are known for their LGBT niche, where some are not and that's not always up to them, sometimes the publishers will only sign on the book if the LGBT character is written as a straight character as well.

 

Publishers Weekly published a blog where two authors wrote an article about trying to publish their book with a major company, but were told that the one gay character had to be written straight and if it was successful enough then they could write him as gay later on in the series. (Click here to read the article)

 

In the blog post they state that they didn't feel the need to change the Gay character because that's who he was and sometimes the teenagers they spoke to who were Gay always spoke about wanting a Gay character who could be shown as being strong.

 

“Making a gay character straight is a line in the sand which I will not cross. That is a moral issue. I work with teenagers, and some of them are gay. They never get to read fantasy novels where people like them are the heroes, and that’s not right.”

 

I completely agree with what Rachel had to say: Gay characters are never shown as being strong and it's not fair because there are people in the army and police force who happen to be Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender. They're courageous people who show strength, not weakness.

 

Rachel then went on to continue her argument as to why her character should remain Gay.

 

When you refuse to allow major characters in YA novels to be gay, you are telling gay teenagers that they are so utterly horrible that people like them can’t even be allowed to exist in fiction.

 

After coming out as LGBT we immediately get targeted, next thing you know you're being pushed into lockers, being beaten up and having people tell you to kill yourselves and it shouldn't be like that in the publishing world. We can't help being gay anymore than people can help being straight or being born with blonde hair. It's a normal thing and for it to become a normal thing in society then people have to accept it and use what they can to advertise an acceptance towards LGBT.

 

LGBT teenagers are four times more likely than straight teenagers to commit suicide.

 

LGBT teenagers don't commit suicide because there aren't LGBT characters in Young Adult books, but it's more about the prejudice. If a boy and girl were making out in public nothing would be said, but as soon as people see two boys (or girls) holding hands in public then it's rubbing their sexuality down their throats.

 

WE. ARE. NOT. DIFFERENT!

 

Rachel and Sherwood wrote the novel so that the teenagers we know—some of whom are gay, and many of whom are not white—would be able, for once, to read a fun post-apocalyptic adventure in which they are the heroes. And we were told that such a thing could not be allowed.

 

I love their reply!

 

After we thanked the agent for their time, declined the offer, and hung up, Sherwood broke the silence. “Do you think the agent missed that Becky and Brisa [supporting characters] are a couple, too? Do they ever actually kiss on-page? No? I’M ADDING A LESBIAN KISS NOW!”

 

I love that Rachel and Sherwood wanted to show that being LGBT was normal and that two boys (or girls) kissing is okay. (Sex is also okay). Being a gay teenager is hard, but sometimes you just want to read a book with a LGBT protagonist and there's only a small list of books we can choose from. But what I love even more about Rachel and Sherwood is that they wanted to write it for the gay people they knew, not because it was different in Young Adult fiction.

 

Not every publisher are against publishing books with LGBT characters, Agents can decline because of sexuality and so can Editors and we can't change their minds about that, it's up to them. But I'm also missing out a big factor: Authors. Yes, there are authors who are known Homophobes and by reading their work it looks like we're supporting them and their opinions.  

 

Orson Scott Card is a known Homophobe. In fact he's the biggest homophobe ever. I will never read a book by him because I'm gay myself and he is hating on people just like me, which is disgusting. In 2004, he said gays were the victims of self-loathing and child abuse. But Card’s most notorious anti-gay screed was his 2008 article in the Mormon Times, in which he wrote, “No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman. This is a permanent fact of nature.”

 

John C Wright is another Homophobic author. After the SyFy Channel promised to be diverse in its portrayal of gay people, Wright took to LiveJournal with a shockingly homophobic post: “Why are you willing to tolerate sexual perversion but not racism? In a world with no standards, what makes a malfunction of love higher on your standard than a malfunction of hate? Is an irrational lust and longing to mimic the mating act with a sex with which one cannot mate, at its root, any more or less disconnected to reality than an irrational fear and hatred of a Negro?” He also compared being gay to bestiality, necrophilia, and the sexual abuse of children.

 

Another Homophobe is Kingsley Amis. The basis for Kingsley Amis’ bigotry is in his letters, which include slurs aimed at gays and Jews. He referred to gay men as “queers,” “poofters,” and “queens.”

 

To be honest the "queens" thing doesn't bother me because I am an aspiring Drag Queen, but there are so many gay men out there who aren't and it's offensive. I have a lot to say about all three men but I'd rather be a mature adult about it all and accept their point of view for what it is. But I will say I completely disagree with everything they stated.

 

The Young Adult genre's aren't that bad though, guys. There are a few well known authors who write LGBT characters and I think a lot of you will be surprised by one of them. She's massively known in the Young Adult genre and her first book City of Bones was also turned into a movie and has now been optioned for a TV Series.

 

Yes, Cassandra Clare, writes LGBT characters. In The Mortal Instruments there are two main gay characters: Alec and Magnus, but that's not her only LGBT characters. She is planning to write a Transgendered character and is set to appear in The Dark Artifices.

 

Here are five books that feature LGBT characters (James Dawson normally writes diverse characters) :

 

 

25 Must read YA books featuring LGBT characters

 

What are your opinions on having LGBT characters in Young Adult fiction? Do you agree or disagree with it? Let me know and comment down below.

Depression: My Story

1 in 8 teens suffer from depression

Now I've never spoken about my life really. But being only eighteen you may all think that I've had it all easy, because that's what it's supposed to be when you're young; you should live your life, having fun, going out with your friends, getting drunk, etc. I am not like that and never have been.

One of the biggest things of my life is my depression. It changed me.

My story of depression started when I was fifteen years old, I came out as gay. Many people would say that it was a brave move coming out as having an attraction to boys when they go to an all boys school, I'm sure it was to some people, but to me it was all about being happy. I felt like I was in constant pain because I wasn't being myself, so when I let it out I felt like I could finally be myself and be happy at the same time.

At first the boys in my school appeared to be fine, but they weren't. It took them all three weeks before they started name calling me and it became very clear that they wanted to make my life hell. Every day, all day for months on end, they could call me Faggot, Bender, Freak, Gay Boy and those don't even seem bad, but for a fifteen year old who was like a new born baby and soaked up everything, it hurt. A lot.

After a few months of life torment, the verbal abuse became physical. I was never punched, kicked and assaulted, but they did start pushing me into walls, tripping me over when I walked past and threw food and cans of pop at me. There's only so much you can take before you explode, and when I did and told the teachers nothing was done about it because I didn't know the names of the boys. I could've pointed them out to them, but they wasn't interested.

At one point during this, I, myself had started to change.

Not on the outside, but inside. I was feeling hate towards myself, wanted plastic surgery to change everything; my nose mainly. But it wasn't just that. I started to snap at people, they could be nice to me and I'd want to punch them in the face. My concentration had suffered and I started to isolate myself from everyone. My life diary was wake up, go to school, come home and go to bed and I'd come out when everyone was in bed. I was a complete recluse, I didn't know who I was. 

Everything took a complete one-eighty when a boy in my year at school threatened to slit my throat open. He was known for taking drugs and for being very violent, so when I told my school and they did nothing, I felt like I was in no way safe there. I lost all respect for the teachers and I never felt safe there, in fact when I was doing my A Levels I was so scared to go in there that I sometimes faked I was ill and couldn't go.

The second time my depression came (mine comes in stages) it was when I came out as my alter-ego: FiFi La Femme (Now Azalea-Lee). People didn't understand it and if I am being honest, I don't think I truly understood it. I wasn't questioning my sexuality, I was also questioning for gender. I tell no lie when I say this, I did love wearing female clothes, makeup and wigs. I felt beautiful and confident. I had never felt that.



During this stage of depression my life really did change. I began to self-harm. I couldn't control the pain I was feeling, so taking a knife to my wrist made me feel in control. When they stopped working I went and started taking medication. I was already on them because of a ear infection, but two pills every four hours went to me taking, on average twenty - twenty five pills. I was faking I had a ear ache, toothache or stomach bug and my family believed me. However, I was never thinking of what I was doing to myself. (I'll tell that part later).

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have tried to take my own life. Your mind just goes around and round and then when you have a chance you take it. I wrapped a rope around my neck and started to suffocate myself. I did stop, I always did, but the option was always there. Always in the back of my mind.

When I went to the doctor, she diagnosed me with Severe Depression and I was made to go and have a blood test due to over-medicating. It turned out that I had damaged my liver. I was on the edge of a mental breakdown. I could've cried because I had did this to myself. I was to blame, no one but me.

Everything ended in December of 2013. It's September 2014 now and I still have urges to cut. I'm not happy with myself, but I am learning to control that. In fact I have started to think about applying for NYU to study Journalism. I already have a place in University for next year, but I want more out of life and moving to New York feels right for me. I'm also planning on getting a nose job when I turn twenty-one.

I've not over medicated since everything happened, I take them responsibly now, although the temptation is there. I am very proud that I have suffered with depression because it's made me into who I am today. I'm a strong minded person who wants better out of life. I'm also confident in knowing who I am and there is not one thing that people can say that will put me down.

ARC Review: This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Title: This Book is Gay
Author: Juno Dawson
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: September 4th 2014
Page Number: 279

Summary:

THIS BOOK IS GAY offers a guide to answer all the questions you were afraid to ask, alongside testimonials from people across the gender and sexual spectrums. This frank, funny, fully inclusive book explores subjects from sex to politics, how to pull, stereotypes, how to come-out and more.

 

 

 

 

 

Review:

"A book that every school should be handing out to their students. Intelligently written, educational and humorous. A perfect book for every sort of human." bookbitchreviews.blogspot.co.uk

When I saw this book on Goodreads I was dying to have it. Being gay myself I wanted to see what other people thought about the whole topics, plus it was kind of like a self-help book, so when Hot Key Books emailed me and asked if I wanted it, I jumped for joy and replied straight away.

There aren't many books that I've stayed up until three am to finish reading, but this was one of the books. Every page was educational, but it wasn't hard for the brain. The comical touches made the information so much easier to soak up, plus it came with awesome illustrations.

This book is Gay looks at different topics, such as coming out, how to meet people like you, and to deal with haters. It also tells you some popular gay icons and has true opinions and stories from other people, which I specifically loved.

Coming out for me was both a good and bad experience. I was 15 and came out on the Thursday to my friend and my parents. By Monday everyone had found out. People were okay with it at first, but three weeks after everyone turned on me. I suffered homophobic abuse every day and suffered from a few slurs off teachers who thought it was funny. However, it hurt me really bad.

Today I am a very open person. I wear my depression like a badge and I want people to know that if they are struggling to never give up. Every time I feel like I'm about to cry I say my quote over and over 'My tears are like diamonds; they're too expensive to waste.' and it is true. Why cry over people who mean nothing to you. You live your life the way you want to and don't let anyone change that.

This Book is Gay is going to so helpful to a lot of people. Gay or straight. One of the thing James touches upon is that not every school teaches their pupils about gay relationships and sex. My school was the exact same. It was always straight sex and I felt out of place. This book is one that every school could read with their students or even hand it out to them and let them really sink the information in.

Every topic was amazing and I can't wait for it to hit the selves, because it's going to be HUGE. And of course I gave this book a freakin' 5 STARS! Absolute perfection! Ps, sorry about this messy review. It's hard to review something in perfect detail when words won't describe how good the book really was.