Alex Sanchez (1) (1957–)

This book follows a high-school boy named Diego as he goes through probation following an assault at school. Throughout probation, he works through the root cause of his anger, focusing in on childhood trauma and his coping methods.

While I am not a therapist and cannot vouch for the effectiveness or safety of the methods used in this book on healing from trauma, it really hit at my emotions. Diego has quite a bit of character growth throughout the story and quickly becomes someone you want to root for. His internalized homophobia is not something that is supported throughout the book and presented as one of the areas of growth for him. While his healing felt incredibly fast, it still felt real and personal. I did take off a star because of the unrealistic speed of his recovery, specifically surrounding his confrontation with his mom and how that was handled.

This is my first Alex Sanchez read and I will definitely be picking up more of Alex Sanchez's books.

TW: child sexual assault, self harm, assault, homophobia… (més)

An awful lot of melodrama, and characters that fit archetypes. But maybe I'm looking at it through the rose-tinted glasses of hindsight. I have a hard time thinking this would be groundbreaking, but it might have been ahead of the curve of young adult gay fiction. I had certainly seen its cover as a babygay, around the time I came out. I guess that's why I bought it when a shopowner recommended it in a gay London bookshop a few years ago. (Like many other things, it's been sitting on my bookshelf since then looking at me forlornly.)

A nice read but I'm definitely too old for it.… (més)