YA New York

It seems like a crime to be posting a review of such an excellent book on a Saturday, when everyone is probably outdoors doing fun outdoors things, instead of reading blogs. But honestly? Almost from the moment I picked this book up, I’ve been thinking, “Oh my God. I have to rave about this one.” And so I’m like a little kid who can’t wait for Christmas (or Monday) morning, and I’m letting this particular gift out of Santa’s bag o’ books a bit early.

Brian Malloy’s new book is about a girl who is desperately in love with a guy who is, of course, gay. The old adage, “All the good ones are either gay or taken” rings completely true here.

A brief detour from the review part of this review:

Maybe one of the reasons I identified with this book so much is that I’ve fallen in love with more gay men than I’d like to admit. I went to the prom (not my prom, but his) with a guy who came out to me a few years later. But really, it all started when I was in sixth grade:

Gym class at Lovett Elementary School in Clinton, Mississippi was something like the seventh circle of hell until we started learning 50s dancing. We spent only a week or two on that particular part of the curriculum, but it was heavenly because I, as the shortest girl in the class, was paired up with one of the shortest boys. I was a nerd, and he was one of those guys who was popular because he was so very nice to everyone he encountered.

He paid me my first compliment. “You have really soft hands.”

He had dirty blonde hair in a bowl cut, beautiful eyes, and he was actually nice to me. Being the biggest loser in school when you’re in sixth grade is not exactly fun, and boys would generally taunt me. But Lance Bass was not like that.

Yes, you heard me. Lance. Bass. Was my sixth grade dance partner. He was also the first boy I ever dared to call at home, but I don’t think he knows to this day that I did it.

When I called, his mother said he and his father were away for a weekend fishing trip. And then she asked that fateful question: “Would you like to leave a message?” No! Certainly not. “I’ll just, umm, see him in school on Monday.” Which I wouldn’t, because we weren’t even in the same gym class — we were only paired up for that unit. I didn’t have any classes at all with Lance, and I hardly ever spoke to him again after that day. But I always had a thing for him, because he had been so sweet.

Years later, I found out he was in a boy band. And then I found out he was gay. And I just thought, “It figures. Count on me to go for the gay guys every single time.”

Back to the book: I suppose my own scarred past of loving gay men has primed me for a book that centers around a girl, Molly, who has a huge crush on a gay guy, Mark. She spends some time with him, gets to be his friend, and thinks she might have a chance. When she graduates from high school, both she and Mark move to New York City.

And, just as she’s really thinking maybe they’ve got something going, she finds out he’s gay.

I’m not giving away a real twist here, by the way. That’s all at the beginning of the book. What the novel really focuses on is the fallout. What is it like to be in love with, and then try to be a good friend to, a gay guy when you are a straight girl? I don’t know how Brian Malloy was able to mine the depths of a woman’s soul so well, but he did it.

Twelve Long Months is one of the best books I’ve reviewed here yet. As in, “AAAA+++ would do business with again!” It’s a fantastic read that is over before you know it, and of course it leaves you wanting more, as all good books do. Heartbreaking, tragic, hilarious — it speaks to the nerd in all of us, the girl-who-goes-after-the-wrong-guy in all of us.

Finally, and I think this has to be said, Brian deals with some really important issues here. Sexual identity, race, ethnicity, and the laws of physics. (Indeed, our heroine Molly is an aspiring physicist, which was the one difficult bit of this novel for me. Because science was always my worst subject.) The book not only addresses these issues, but does it gracefully and humorously, and it is another title to add to that list of young adult fiction that is most certainly not of the chicken nugget variety.

Buy Twelve Long Months from Amazon.com.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.