Week Thirty-Eight: Boy Meets Boy

I was poking around on the internet, and I happened to come across some surprising controversy about David Levithan's "Boy Meets Boy". Now, if you haven't read the book, you should be able to gather that yes, it's a gay love story. The people I saw disliking the book were not people who don't support lgbtq people, but instead tended to be lgbtq people themselves. The reasoning seemed to be that it was unrealistic, that a world like Paul's is so removed from what we have now, it felt weird.

You all know me. I have plenty of opinions, a blog, and a penchant for lgbtq books. Of COURSE I have something to say.

Boy Meets Boy is a romantic comedy in a book. It follows the formula that we are all familiar with after watching a few "chick-flicks". Boy meets boy, boy loses boy, boy re-unites with boy, we all live happily ever after. For some reason, this doesn't feel trite at all, instead, leaving me feeling like I'm drinking the best hot cocoa ever, surrounded by a pile of kittens.

Is the book realistic? Good question. In the same way that Harry Potter, Eragon, Lord of the Rings, or any other alternate reality is realistic, I would have to say yes. When I look for realism, I look for characters reacting in a way that feels right for their background, people who I actually believe could exist. The bottom line is this: do I believe the writer? Can I look past the words on the page and say "yes, you exist"? In the case of Boy Meets Boy, the answer is a resounding yes.

The world that Paul and Noah live in might not look like your world, or like my world, but that doesn't stop me from trusting the author and going along for the ride. And for the space between those two covers, I live in a town where drag queens are the star quarterbacks, where the local scout group is not the homophobic boy scouts, but instead, the co-ed, diversity-friendly Joy Scouts. On those pages, I stand in Noah's room and paint music, and I eat at Veggie D's.

Do I believe that a world like that could exist? With all my heart. That's the world I look forward to living in one day.

One thing I have to say is this. Do yourself a favor. No matter who you are, or what words you use to identify with, you should read this book. Read it and bask in how wonderful it will make you feel.

~Whimsy

P.S. Happy Banned Book Week! Boy Meets Boy has never been banned, but it's been challenged at a few libraries. Celebrate Banned Book Week with me, read one.

Week Twenty-Eight: Baking Heat, Books and Brains.

I don't know if any of you noticed, but it's BAKING HOT right now.
I've been seeking refuge in libraries, the studio*, and drinking ungodly amounts of water. Now, any excuse to spend more time at a library sounds like a good idea to me.

It's kind of odd that as of just over a week, it will have been a full year since BEDA**. As much as I would LOVE to do BEDA again, I don't think I could manage doing a daily project at this time. I'll keep on with my weekly schedule, but I don't think I could properly do an EVERY DAY thing. Unless something changes, and Rowling knows, that happens all the time.

In reply to you lover-ly commenters, I will NOT give up on Buffy. So many people lohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifve both the show and the character, I can't write it off after just ONE bad episode. (I may take Rachel's suggestion, and just skip to season 2. Nothing wrong with getting all emotionally invested and then going back to see the cringe-worthy stuff after you care about the characters.

I've been trying to get some reading done, nothing huge, nothing like a summer project, but it's just nice to have pages to turn, and things that actually leave some story to the imagination. Don't get me wrong, I'm horribly emotionally attached to the Doctor Who characters, but I really like the action of READING.

There's something to be said for physically picking out a book, leafing through it, making sense in your head from just some back ink on a page, and getting to know characters in a way that I, personally don't think you can when you're watching the drama play out on a screen.

Take the character of Harry Potter, our wizard of page and screen. One of, if not THE most well known book character of today. When I read about him, the Harry I have in my head will be different than the character in your head, who will be different than the Harry that's in your best friend's head, who will be different than the Harry who is in Daniel Radcliffe's head.

And you know what? We can all be right. I don't get to tell you that how you view him is wrong, and you don't get to tell Daniel Radcliffe that how he views Harry is wrong***.

Reading is a very personalized experience, and for that reason and MANY others, I prefer it to anything on a screen. I guess that's why, when I hear that I should watch a certain TV show, I automatically think "Oh, d'you think there's a book I could read instead?" even when I know that the show came first.

If you think about it, reading reveals far more about yourself than it does about the author or book characters. I really like that.


Now I'm going to go find a book, get into my bed and READ.

~Whimsy

P.S.
I'm curious to know your thoughts on a few things, if you managed to get through this whole post (and good on you if you did).
Firstly, what are your thoughts on TV and movies versus books?
Secondly, do you have an e-reader/would you want one/do you like the idea?
Thirdly, how is your summer going? I feel like I haven't spoken to my blogging friends in AGES!

P.P.S. I don't think I ever mentioned this before, but the times you see on my posts are the actual times I finished writing them. I go into the options and change them to reflect the minute I actually manually hit the "PUBLISH POST" button. As you can see, I do a LOT of my writing after 1am.


*The studio, where we do most of the work for the business that we own (plus crafts as well!), is the one room in my house that has A/C. Everyone clusters around the nice cool air, and we all flop around like dying fish.

**Blog Every Day In August, where last year, I met some wonderful people who I am so proud to call my friends.

***To clarify, I still am a staunch supporter of raging at WB for some of their choices with the movies, and I am in NO WAY saying that every acting decision that Dan made as Harry was the right one. That being said, the way he played Harry is just that. The way he played him. It doesn't make YOUR Harry any less valid, just because "that's not how it was in the movies". Since when did the movies dictate the books or what's real in our minds, anyway?