In the book Openly
Straight, Bill Koenigsberg writes about a young teen that comes out in the
8th grade and is now a junior in high school. He wants to be, “a
part of the guys.” To do so, he goes to a prep school on the other side of the
country to be “openly straight.” Unfortunately, he ran away from one label just
to fit right into another, the jocks. Overall, Openly Straight aims high
and succeeds brilliantly. It’s up-to-the-second contemporary, funny,
unexpected, and peppered with terrific dialogue and best of all blatantly
honest. Openly Straight is a funny, smart novel about being out, being
real, and of all things be yourself can mean. This book is good literature
because of the characters, dialogue, and the overall story.
- Nathan
