Books: Running With Lions by Julian Winters (2018)

“Bloomington High School Lions' star goalie, Sebastian Hughes, should be excited about his senior year: His teammates are amazing and he's got a coach who doesn't ask anyone to hide their sexuality. But when his estranged childhood best friend Emir Shah shows up to summer training camp, Sebastian realizes the team's success may end up in the hands of the one guy who hates him. Determined to reconnect with Emir for the sake of the Lions, he sets out to regain Emir's trust. But to Sebastian's surprise, sweaty days on the pitch, wandering the town's streets, and bonding on the weekends sparks more than just friendship between them.”

While this book is refreshingly diverse and contemporary, you also cannot miss some of the obvious aspects of what sports really is when a bunch of young men in their late teens get together at a summer camp designed to help them get into college: it’s kind of gay. Which is why, perhaps, homophobia is so rampant in sports, as lines blur between friendship and sexuality. Sports are a great motivator, though. It does teach people leadership skills, working within a team atmosphere and molds people into caring more for others. But men are told very early on to suppress emotions, see other men as an adversary, and sort of see them as unequal to themselves. But there are times –and probably more often than not- where men cannot hide the fact they can be attracted to someone of the same sex.

Winters explores some of these themes in Running With Lions, his debut novel. While seventeen year-old Sebastian has sort of dealt with the fact he likes both girls and guys, he’s not explored that part –the man part- until his break up with his girlfriend Sam (who was the one to call off the relationship) and return of childhood friend. What helps, of course, is being at a summer soccer camp that has coaches who make no judgment on the teens sexuality –and they point out that everyone is welcome on Team Lion. This sort of openness sets up the book and while you know where it’s headed, it’s still a charming read.

It’s not a perfect book, as Winter’s spends way too much time describing the color of the sky, making Emir Shah too standoffish to be liked, and generally making the whole third person, present tense writing style a bit confusing. And while both Sebastian and Emir are well developed, the supporting characters are bit stick-like, and sort of sound alike. It also took me a while to get past Winter’s choice of having these said characters call each other by their first and last names (some who had two first names) and occasional nicknames.

Still, it’s a character driven story and the whole lead up to the Big Game with the rival Spartans is more a MacGuffin than the true climax you normally read in books or see in movies, but we get the John Hughes payoff in the end, so I’m happy with that.

Books: They Both Die At The End By Adam Silvera (2017)

“On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today.Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day”

Writer Adam Silvera takes the simple premise we’ve all pondered in our lives: If you knew you had 24 hours to live, what would do with the time given. This speculative idea is the MacGuffin at the center of They Both Die At The End, a weird, oddly charming, darkly humorous look at fragility of life. It features a gay Puerto-Rican main character filled with anxieties that have little to do with his sexuality (although they are part of them) and a bisexual Cuban main character, whom lives his life somewhat to fullest. I have to say, it’s refreshing to see some other representation than the typical aspect of this genre, which is always directed at white, gay male experience. Since the books release in 2017, it’s been highly praised for that diversity and Silvera’s talent at capturing how teens talk (almost every other word Rufus speaks contains the word “mad”).

No explanation is given as to how Death-Cast knows when people will die (hence the MacGuffin), so the book focuses on the End Day of two teens as they eat food, walk around town, ride on bikes, visit Mateo's comatose father in the hospital, and sing karaoke. There are a few clichés and a few missteps (the whole Peck subplot is boring), but there is some emotional weight here. It’s a quick read as well.

And, obviously, the coda of the book is to enjoy life (or live like every day is Shark Week as Tracy Jordan used to say on 30 Rock) to fullest because death can be a phone call away.

Books: My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (2016)

"Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fifth grade, when they bonded over a shared love of E.T., roller-skating parties, and scratch-and-sniff stickers. But when they arrive at high school, things change. Gretchen begins to act…different. And as the strange coincidences and bizarre behavior start to pile up, Abby realizes there’s only one possible explanation: Gretchen, her favorite person in the world, has a demon living inside her. And Abby is not about to let anyone or anything come between her and her best friend. With help from some unlikely allies, Abby embarks on a quest to save Gretchen. But is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?”

My Best Friend's Exorcism is fun, glorious read. It falls short of being great, though, and for some reason I cannot put my thoughts together on exactly why this is. And while the book is about exorcism, about possession, the core theme throughout is friendship. Here author Grady Hendrix excels at recreating the 1980s –and in particular, 1988- and showing what friendship is truly about.

As a supernatural horror story –which is more adult lit than YA lit, so be aware- the final third of the book delivers –it will remind many of William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist novel and movie, as well as classic scare-fest that was The Omen. But the heart and soul of the book is what friends will do to help other friends. It is this theme that reminded me much of The Body, the Stephen King short story that became the hit film Stand By Me. Here we see two girls with an unbreakable bond (even if it carries the whiff of a rich girl/poor girl trope) and one, Abby, who will stop at nothing to help her best friend.

 

The final line in The Body could easily be applied here (even if the girls are 16): “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, did you?”

Books: Kill The Farm Boy By Delilah S. Dawson and Kevin Hearne (2018)

"Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, a hero, the Chosen One, was born . . . and so begins every fairy tale ever told. This is not that fairy tale. There is a Chosen One, but he is unlike any One who has ever been Chosened. And there is a faraway kingdom, but you have never been to a magical world quite like the land of Pell. There, a plucky farm boy will find more than he's bargained for on his quest to awaken the sleeping princess in her cursed tower. First there's the Dark Lord who wishes for the boy's untimely death . . . and also very fine cheese. Then there's a bard without a song in her heart but with a very adorable and fuzzy tail, an assassin who fears not the night but is terrified of chickens, and a mighty fighter more frightened of her sword than of her chain-mail bikini. This journey will lead to sinister umlauts, a trash-talking goat, the Dread Necromancer Steve, and a strange and wondrous journey to the most peculiar 'happily ever after' that ever once-upon-a-timed."

While Kill The Farm Boy is supposed to humorous fantasy story, it’s not very deep (and I read a lot of Piers Anthony and Craig Shaw Gardner in the 80s and 90s that have more depth than this book), but it’s still rompish. However, I never really did find anything about it engaging, the plotting is sluggish, the characters dull, stupid, and pointless and the humor childish. Yes, at times, there are few good jokes here and there, some which might make you even chuckle, but most are of the eye-rolling variety, as if the continuous joke of a goat pooping out pellets would be not only funny once, but funny 360 more times throughout the book.

Ultimately, this book made me angry, as this genre is always ripe for satire. But I could not wait to get it over with –as a matter of fact, I threw it across the room and said screw it. It’s rare for me to hate a book this much and I guess I have to give props to both Dawson and Hearne for producing such a trashcan fire of a book and then get it published.