From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up. A nicely paced, readable story with believable characters. Alex Beekman is 17 and living in Vermont with his family as this companion to Twelve Days in August (Holiday House, 1993) begins. When Alex's father sells one of his TV scripts and has to return to L.A. for the summer (possibly longer), Alex jumps at the chance to go along even though his mother and twin sister decide to stay in the east. The teen knows that his best friend, Tito, has been disowned by his family in California but does not know why. Tito's trail passes through a Venice tattoo shop to Topanga Canyon, where Alex finds him living with a man and recovering from a savage gay-bashing delivered by his own father. At first Alex is shocked, but eventually he realizes that he, too, is gay. The hip L.A. setting adds to the appeal. This is a solid addition that will supplement more compelling coming-out fiction such as Nancy Garden's Annie on My Mind (Farrar, 1992), Francesca Lia Block's Baby Be-Bop (HarperCollins, 1995), and M. E. Kerr's Deliver Us from Evie (HarperCollins, 1994).?Claudia Morrow, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Gr. 7-12. A kind of docu-novel about coming out, this story begins with high-school junior Alex Beekman denying to himself that he is gay. His family has recently moved from Los Angeles to a small town in Vermont. He is bullied at school and jeeringly called fag. He longs for his best friend in the world, Tito Perone, but Tito has left his home in L.A. and disappeared. Why won't Tito's family talk about it? When Alex returns to L.A., he discovers that Tito is gay, that his father beat him up, and that he is living with a lover. Alex finds work in a tattoo parlor, and guess what? At the end he discovers that he, too, is gay and that he has always been in love with Tito. This companion to
Twelve Days in August (1993) is long and detailed, with a heavy-handed and predictable plot. However, individual scenes are dramatic, and for a teen facing such an identity crisis (and for his friends), this could be a great help in recognizing the secrets and lies he lives with. One of many books this season about gay identity, this is about the stage before M. E. Kerr's
"Hello," I Lied , in which the kid knows he is gay but can't tell others about it.
Hazel Rochman
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.