The Perfect Family by Kathryn Shay
When her senior year son comes out she is there to support him and others are also but it has
caused such a drastic change in his other relationships with others in town and his immediate friends.
Jamie has made a pact with his friend that they would both tell their mothers today. Luke didn't and told Jamie this. Jamie writes a journal to get his thoughts down on paper.
His mother, Maggie feels a lot of things, she's happy if Jamie is happy. Maggie would tell her husband, Michael tonight. Michael wonders if something he did or didn't do when the child was growing up could've stopped Jamie from being gay. Michael says the church says being gay is a sin.
Discusses how others take the news as they are told.
Other family secrets come to light also.
Therapy group is an eye opener Everything is going on an even keel, as much as can be expected when he is in charge of the blood drive at the school and prom season is approaching and he plans to go with his male date we find others who will not allow them to go to pre parties together, parents who want to escape by having an affair, and a suicide attempt. ( )

Do you want to cry? Have your heart squeezed tight? Well, this is the book for you! There is no way you can read this book without crying, absolutely no way... at least for me. I started reading this book this morning and could not put it down. I cried on the train, I cried on my conference call (was totally not paying attention), I cried during lunch, I cried on the way home... I have the biggest headache right now O_o

This is the story of a family that had their foundation rocked when the youngest son (Jamie) openly declares his sexual orientation as gay. The father (Mike), a devout Catholic, struggles with this; the mother (Maggie), a psychologist, knows all the right things, but struggles with what this means to her son and family; the older brother (Brian), the star high school athlete, struggles with how this affects him and his standing in school and how it clashes with how his father is raising them as devout Catholics. And most importantly, Jamie... how this declaration affects him personally, his family, his friends and his future.

It is an EXTREMELY emotional story. It hurt to read this family struggling. It also shows how religion can really affect a person's ability to cope with revelations in their lives. Although there was a happy ending, you know there are so many times that there isn't. It hurts the heart to think of all those struggling with no one in their lives to affirm that they will be OK and that living a life of true self is always best and fulfilling.

This family story touched me deeply. There has been no similar circumstance for me, but such is the gift of this author that she made me want to hug this family and tell them they had people on their side.

I highly recommend this book. ( )

I remember Kathryn Shay from the time I was reading het romances, I think I probably read one or two too, so when I saw this novel by her, it picked my interest. I was curious to see how someone who is used to write straight relationship would face the task to move to gay relationship. In a way she didn’t, The Perfect Family, as the same title suggests, is a family story more than a love story, and if we want to search for a romance, the one who is fully developed is that between Maggie, the mother, and Mike, the father; Jamie, the teenager who comes out to his family, has a “high school” relationship with Luke… maybe it’s love, maybe it’s something that will shade away in time, but in this moment it’s the main reason why all the balances in this perfect family is apparently not working.

There are very nice and complex characters; Mike, for example, is a very conservative catholic man, who struggles to accept the idea his own son is gay, but for a simple reason: he does believe homosexuality is a sexual orientation and not a lifestyle choice (his own wife is a psychologist and she is very ready to correct him if he had any different idea), but his church is telling him that, if one is gay, and he is not able to “fight” it, then he should be chaste; Mike, that is sexually active, more, he sometime needs sex as escape (of course always with his wife), cannot accept Jamie will be able to be celibate, and so, the obvious conclusion is he will be a sinner and though condemned to hell. I struggle to accept that a wise and good man like Mike could have such archaic ideas. On the other hand, Mike is probably one of the best husband, and father, I have read about, and so I wanted for him to find a way to do the right thing.

Then there is Maggie; as a psychologist she is probably more ready than other mothers to hear the confession of her teenager son, but that doesn’t mean it’s easier for her. Maggie is almost in the middle, her mother role “pushes” her to be worried, and to be scared, for her son’s future; her psychologist role is trying to convince the mother that everything is fine, that there is nothing wrong with her son, that she should concentrate on him and her husband, trying to not destroy their family with her fears.

In a way I also liked the contraposition between Maggie and Mike, and yes, I also think Maggie failed in dealing with Mike, but in her failing I found a more realistic, and likeable, character. Mike was wrong in a lot of things, but Maggie should have tried to be more open with him, to share more of her worries, and above all the actions she was undertaking to help their son.

The Catholic Church is not a winner but neither a loser in this novel, above all since we have the chance to see different sides of it; there is the conservative wing of Father Pete and Mike’s church; there is the more understanding attitude of the catholic lobby of Dignity, also represented by Mike’s parents; there is the very liberal Unitarian Church that is attending Maggie. All in all, all sides involved will have goods and bads, an in a way, the common understanding is that anyone needs to believe, the God is always the same, only the churches worshipping are different.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/160282181X/?tag=elimyrevandra-20