Reviews for Boys & girls, girls & boys

The average rating for Boys & girls, girls & boys based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-08 00:00:00 James Dykes I think it's pretty fucking ridiculous to give a swearing warning at this point, because I swear in almost every review I write, but okay, I'll give it anyway. I will be swearing, alright? Okay. So. I did two things today. First, I went to the library. Let's start there. I was actually running my fingers up and down the spine of a David Levithan book, contemplating whether or not to get it. You see, there was the risk of my parents checking to see which books I would check out or not. And seriously, did I want them to flip open one of my books and be "assaulted" with pages of teh ghey lurve? Here's a hint: NO. I did not want those looks, I did not want that conversation, I did not want that...everything. But there was a chance I would be able to sneak the book into the house, a small chance but a chance nonetheless, that I would be able to read it and return it without them knowing of the subject matter. Then, as I was sitting there next to the bookshelf, I thought to myself: The frick? I don't even like David Levithan. WellbesidesthatonebookBUT. So why am I even the slightest bit willing to compromise my feeling of safety at home for this shit? I put the book down. Then, I came across Boy Girl Boy. The title made me think it was about a love triangle. Well, I thought, I don't exactly want to read something like this but fuck, okay. At least if my parents see it they'll think I'm just another vapid fourteen year old girl idealing another heteronormative relationship. (Okay, now I see that thought was mean. You don't have to be vapid and fourteen to ideal a heterosexual relationship. I myself don't ideal any relationship at all. But moving on...) I looked through the jacket. Le gasp! Mentions of a main character being unsure about his sexuality. But, you see, unlike the Levithan book I wanted to read, these mentions were subtle enough so that my parents could read it without giving me that look I often dreaded. It may not appease my LGBT lit wanting, but it's better than nothing, thought me. Then, this happened: my parents didn't even look at my books when I went to check them out. THEY. DID. NOT. CARE. (This time, anyway.) I could have checked out that Levithan book if I wanted to. I COULD HAVE CHECKED OUT A STEAMY YAOI MANGA AND THEY WOULDN'T HAVE NOTICED. (Not that I would want to, but you get my point, okay?) But it was too late to run back to get the Levithan book. I was stuck with Boy Girl Boy. I started it, and it was okay. A little slow at first, but you know what? It was okay. And then I got around, I don't know, to the middle of the book. If my parents had looked over my shoulder, I would have died. Faggot faggot faggot faggot... THE FUCK? Thankfully I was in the car, and there was no chance my parents were going to suddenly stop the car and pry the book from my hands to see what I was reading. But, seriously? I was...*sigh*...scared. Okay? I was scared. There are three things I do not want anyone to look over my shoulder and see me reading: 1. An intense makeout scene. 2. Any scene of a sexual nature. 3. A (villainous) character of the novel screaming out obscene slurs in a rather random nature. It's just, up until that point, the "issue" (quotes because in all actuality, the only issue is moronic twits being...well, moronic twits) of one of the main characters being gay had been touched on but not a major concern. But suddenly, the page exploded and I was being harassed by these violent slurs. And that's when the novel suddenly started to revolve around Larry (said main character) being gay. Now, I will move on to the second thing I did today. Of course, I'm not done with the first thing yet, but I'll get to that in a moment. So everyone's heard of the It Get's Better campaign. I have, too. I just haven't...you know, become active. Translation: I haven't actually watched any of their videos. But today, I got my headphones out and I searched YouTube, and I watched. And I watched. And I fucking watched. (I also watched some Amazing Atheist videos. They were really funny. But, anyway...) There is one thing I would love to say to those wonderful, wonderful people doing the It Get's Better thing. Two words. If I could ever, by the life of me, get to say these words to them it would tickle me with delight: Fuck. You. FUCK YOU. FUCKKK. YOUUU. Or, alternatively: SCREW YOU. Or: YOU ASSHOLES. That has been building up in me for a long time. You know, you know what? The fucking reason why I never bothered to watch those fucking videos is because I suspected it was all bullshit. I thought to myself, Mello, you should NOT watch those videos because they're probably bullshit. And you get ANGRY at bullshit. Those people are just trying to help, you don't want to get angry at them, okay? But, you know what? Today, I thought, Well I'm kind of feeling like crap for automatically thinking everything these people are saying is bullshit. So I'll see for myself. I did. WH-WHY? JUST FUCKING WHY IS ALL I WANT TO KNOW. Why would you do that? Why? TELL ME WHY! Tell me why any sensible human being who is not a STUPID FUCKING BULLSHITTER would even... GODDAMNIT. GOD. DAMN. IT. You know what? This is having nothing to do with the book so I think I should get to the point. Basically, the point of the It Get's Better campaign is...wait...you guessed it! That it fucking get's better. What kind of delusional fuck would even fucking say that? So, in Boy Girl Boy, Larry is gay, right? So he, naturally, gets targeted by an asshole and his assholish cronie. Billy, I think, and Mark? Or something. No, no it's Drew. Larry is playing a mock game of basketball with his friend Elliot and like five or so other guys who really have to relevance to the plot beyond this point, so I didn't remember their names. Billy drives up and is like, "You faggoty faggot! I'm going to uncreatively slur at you because I can! Yeahhh! Faggot! You're all faggots! And I literally need a thesaurus at this point because this is just fucking ridiculous -- faggot! Ahahaha!" This is where I gain all my respect for Larry. And this is why I give this book an extra star. (I was originally going to give it one.) Larry walks up to Billy (who's sitting in his car) and does a...well, whatever that thing is called when you grab someone's nose and pull until they submit to your whims. Anyway, it was badass. Billy drove away practically in tears, clutching his nose (uh, poor narration on that part, he can't exactly do both at the same time...) and swearing he would get Larry back for this, and his little dog, too! Damn. That scene was so badass. Anyway. So, not even a night after this, Billy catches Larry driving somewhere alone, drives in front of his car to block him from driving away -- and beats the shit out of him. Larry is literally left in a fucking coma. Albeit, the coma lasts for only like three days, BUT STILL. And I'm thinking to myself: okay. So. When do they get Billy back and live happily every after? (Or, in this case, run away to California like they always wanted.) Here's a hint: THEY FUCKING DON'T. The book ends right fucking after Larry gets out of the coma. I'm pissed off because: 1. It's only mentioned in like, a page in passing, that Elliot (Larry's Big Strong Male Cis White Ally Friend) beats up Billy for what he did. LARRY GOT HIS BRAINS FUCKING KNOCKED OUT FOR NO FUCKING REASON, YOU'D THINK YOU'D PUT MORE SIGNIFICANCE ON THE REVENGE PART. 2. Remember Drew, Billy's cronie? Well, fucking apparently, we're supposed to give this guy the Ally Award because he stopped Billy from killing Larry and got Larry to the hospital. WHAT THE FUCK? NO. I will only say this once: never, ever, in any world ever, should any humanoid creature be rewarded or praised for fucking doing things that ANY HUMANOID CREATURE WITH A BASIC LEVEL OF COMMON SENSE AND DECENCY WOULD DO. NO. That is a given, you should do that because you were fucking born on this earth. If you wouldn't, you are slime, you are disgusting and vile and DO NOT DESERVE TO BREATHE MY FUCKING AIR, OKAY? If you would not try to help someone who was getting killed for NO REASON, or if you would do it and then feel like you deserve some kind of award for it, you are scum. Plain. And. Fucking. Simple. AND THE NOVEL ENDS RIGHT THERE. Which brings me back to the It Get's Better bullshit. It gets better? IT GETS BETTER? If you're going to fucking lie to someone that bad, do it with some goddamn dignity you fuckwads. Go on. Go on, I want to see any of the It Get's Better campaign go and look into the eyes of some gay kid getting knocked around, pushed into dumpsters and tell that poor bastard that it gets better. And then, you know what I want that person to do? I want them to watch TV with that kid. I want them to watch Michele Motherfucking Bachman up there campaigning against gay rights, I want them to turn on their fucking computers and read the fucking news, on how some priest or what the fuck ever is giving away marriages for free to straight couples to just rub it fucking in. And when they do that, then I want them to read the Wikipedia articles on all of the organizations dedicated to "curing" gay people. And then I want them to fucking google Westboro Baptist church. I think you get the idea. And then, I want that fuckwad to look at that kid again. And I want them to say it. I want them to tell that kid that, holy fuck, despite the adults that are still pushed off fucking bridges and drowned, despite the trans women who are beat to death in parking lots, the lesbians who are raped, despite the fucking, what, the fucking men who are kidnapped and tortured for no reason other than the fact that they are sexually attracted to their same gender -- IT GETS BETTER. IT GETS MOTHERFUCKING BETTER. I have been psychologically scarred reading the news, do you know that? DO YOU KNOW THAT? And if you can tell me, honestly, that it gets better and then have me read the news and believe that, then I will give you everything I fucking own. All of it. Give me your address, and I will ship it to you. UNTIL THEN STOP FUCKING LYING, YOU TREMENDOUS DICKS. And to anyone who thinks that I rated this book so low because it didn't have my fantastically gay ending where everyone lived happily ever after and certain assholes were fucked the hell up for trying to kill other normal people, FUCK YOU YOU'RE WRONG. This book had it's other problems. Like for instance, why do I have to skim long passages of it just to get to a part that I care about? And for instance, why did I not give a shit about Elliot's story, feel that Larry's was milked dry and want more of Teresa's, which was pushed to the background despite it's obviously more interesting core? And it had very, very awkward prose. And, look, I know I made a Huge Fucking Deal about the faggot thing earlier, but to be honest, I don't give a shit. A. Shit. Not a singular shit is given. It's just that this was thrown at me before I had a chance to react, and I pretty much emotionally shitted myself. This paragraph has a lot of mentions of shit in it, doesn't it? Anyway, the point is that at first the book had little to nothing to do with Larry being gay. Then, suddenly, it was a Problem of All Problems. And then it was The Problem of All Problems. I had no idea which direction the book was going to go in several times. Also, I think I've typed the word faggot in this review more than I ever have in my entire life. Well, fuck it all. I'm tired, angry and depressed, so I'll just blame it on that, okay? I don't exactly know how to explain the way It Gets Better and Boy Girl Boy really connect to me, but let me try since the entirety of this review so far has just been really angry and really random, I'm sure: It really doesn't get better. And I'm sick of being bullshitted into thinking that it could be. It gets fucking worse. Because guess what, just like that stupid fuck Jennifer whatever running for class president in high school, we have a stupid fuck Michelle Bachman running for president now. Which, but I may be wrong on this, is a little more serious. So you may have had a small solace that Jennifer whatever wouldn't be able to close down the GSA despite her obsession with that "Jesus" fellow, Michelle Bachman would be able to do that as president. Go on, say all you want that she would have to get votes or she would have to do this and that it's highly unlikely, but let's face it: the bitch would. She would and she would and she would. And that creepy as fuck husband of hers would host the Ungayify Yourself Institution for Troubled Youths or something. Fuck, I'm making myself vomit thinking of these sick scenarios. And as for this book, it was awful despite a few badass moments. But even it, even it helped to cement my long lasting depressing belief: the majority of adults are just bigger teenagers, so to even fucking delude yourself into believing that anything could get better just because you're getting out of high school is beyond hilarious. AND NO, I AM NOT SAYING THAT BECAUSE IT NEVER GETS BETTER YOU SHOULD JUST OFF YOURSELF AND BE DONE WITH THE WHOLE FUCKING THING ANYWAY. Despite the fact that sometimes I feel like that, sometimes I feel that the human race is just too fucking disgusting to live with and there's just no reason to put up with this shit anymore, don't. Don't. You see, undoubtedly pissed off pro-It Get's Better people? I said DON'T. You know why? BECAUSE I SAID SO. Okay, actually, no, that's not why. Because, despite what the world seems to be trying to feed you, you are awesome. And badass. In this sea of idiots that surround every normal person today we need more normal people to help raise the population of Those Who Are Not Fuckwads. That is you. You are not other. You are not out of the ordinary. That's why I hate queer. It makes it seem like it's all weird. For fuck's sake, to me, it's just another word to distance everyone. No, just, no, okay? We're all the same. Nobody's stranger than anyone else. I'm not saying we're all not original in our own ways. I'm just saying that nobody here, except for the fucking idiots that would try to make anyone seem so, is weird. We all have quirks, sure, but that's not the point, damn it. It's just that whenever someone uses the words "special", "weird", "queer" it's not helping. It's making it worse. How about instead of the "It's okay to be different!" we go with the "Really, nobody's all that different!" It would make a lot more sense. And you know, before you try to actually fucking tell someone that it's going to get better -- why don't you make sure that it will, first, okay? And I still seem to be straying from the topic of this book. See, this is why I should not merge something that makes me very emotional with something that makes me less but still very emotional. I ALWAYS LOSE TRACK OF THE POINT. Goddamnit. Now to go finish A Monster Calls... And that concludes Another Probably Half Psychotic Rant with Random Capitalized Things...

Review # 2 was written on 2021-03-31 00:00:00 Debbie Tkachyk This book is very short, but it is by no means a light read. It deals with some very heavy issues right from the beginning. Elliot is a confused guy. He wants to get away from his town as soon as possible, but his parents have something more for him. They want him to go to the University and major in Engineering, Elliot definitely doesn’t think he is smart enough for that, and he doesn’t want to tell them that he is moving to California. And his parents especially wont be thrilled to hear that when they find out it’s with his two best friends, Larry and Teresa. Teresa is a broken girl. Her mother left her when she was 13 years old, and ever since then she barely eats and does nothing unless it’s with Larry or Elliot. She is a smart girl and could get into so many schools with scholarships, but what she really wants is to get away. To get away from all the looks and stares people give her, the one whose mother left her. Larry is… different. He is gay. He found out when he was 13 and when people around his town started finding out he was gay, they started treating him like he had an incurable disease, and he hates that. He wants to get away to a place where people accept his lifestyle choice and don’t put him down because of it. He is a smart guy and has so much potential, but no one will let him show it. Except Teresa and Elliot. Three best friends deal with issues of real life, and its very interesting to see the paths they take. This book is a quick read and I think it is a decent book. It got a B- mainly because I think the author could have gone into detail more about what each character was going through, but I also liked how it was straight to the point and no fluff around the edges. It was a book that dealt with issues that some people shy away from and I think it teaches you a little something about what people go through. I say, give it a try. It isn’t that long of a book anyway. You’ll be done with it in 3 hours, tops.