Da ich schon ein Buch von dem Autor gelesen habe und ich das ganz in Ordnung fand, wollte ich dem Autor noch eine Chance geben. Leider konnte ich irgendwie so gar nicht in die Geschichte reinkommen, sodass ich mich jetzt dazu entschlossen habe, das Buch abzubrechen (auch wenn es ein recht kurzes Buch ist). Der Schreibstil, das ganze Sportthema (was sehr detailliert beschrieben wurde), die Charaktere und der Plot konnten mich irgendwie dieses Mal gar nicht begeistern. Ich glaub, was mich am meisten gestört hat, ist, dass der Protagonist gesagt hat, dass er nicht lügt etc, aber sagt, dass er straight sei, obwohl er gay ist und auch Leuten direkt gesagt hat, er sei nicht gay und das alles nur, weil er einfach mal nicht "the gay kid" sein möchte... Auch beim Sportthema war ich raus. An sich mag ich sowas in Büchern, aber das war jetzt wirklich schon sehr detailliert.. Ich hab das Buch nach den ersten Kapiteln als Hörbuch weitergehört, welches ich dank dem Sprecher dann wenigstens noch bis zur Hälfte gehört habe

Can you just put a part of yourself on hold? And if you do, does it cease to be true? I read this book for the second time and I still absolutely loved it. What I didn't particularly like about it were Claire Oliva's character (way too quirky, and her constant "Shay Shay is a bit annoying) and all the sports talk. But, since he wanted to fit in with the jocks, that’s something I can live with. What surprised me the first time I read it is that this book is absolutely hilarious: My mom forgets important details when she talks. Like the time she told us she was considering leather (couches, it turns out), or when I was little and she said “Here’s a napkin to put your balls in” (the Atomic Fireballs that I was eating, she meant). The characters are amazing and absolutely realistic. There’s no stereotypical storyline and it makes you think about how much we label and judge people. Adding to that, this book offers so many quotable passages!

complete review: http://isabellsbooks.blogspot.com/ Instagram: isleepnaked MY THOUGHTS ON IT So it's been three weeks since I've finished this book and I must admit that I can't remember too many details about it except for that I didn't enjoy it and that it took me way too long to get through it because I had no fun reading it. Fortunately, I wrote down some notes while I read it so that this review will be a bit longer than that first sentence. :D But I think it already says a lot about the book that I have already forgotten so much about its plot. When I finished the book I read the information about the author and when I read that he used to be a sports journalist a lot became clear to me. There is a huge amount of detailed sports talk in this book and since I am really not a fan of any kind of sport (except for soccer during the World Cup and European Championship) there was way too much unnecessary information for me in this book. I think it's cool if you can write about your passions in your own book but some passions are just not for me. So the basic plot of this book is that the main character Rafe, who used to be openly gay in his old school, now decides to start his new school by pretending to be straight. Hence the title of the book - he's now openly straight. But according to him this doesn't mean that he's now back in the closet or denys to be gay (although he does this exact thing) but rather that he takes a break from being "that gay kid" in school. He wants to be defined by different things than just by being gay. So I had very mixed feelings about this decision. I could definitely understand where he was coming from and that he was fed up with being reduced to being "that gay kid" and wanted to start fresh without being limited to that and without being excluded by the "cool kids". But on the other hand I really didn't like his decision because I never felt like it made him truly happy but he was too blind to see that himself - while all the people around him who loved him and knew that he's gay kept telling him that it's a bad idea. I recently read some books in which I didn't really like the main character but liked his/her friends a lot more and really wished the story would have played in their heads instead. (e.g. History Is All You Left Me, Am I Normal Yet?) And the same was the case with OPENLY STRAIGHT. I never found Rafe to be likable but I really loved Rafe's parents and also very much liked Ben. I know that there is a sequel to OPENLY STRAIGHT about Ben but after reading the synopsis of that book I don't really want to read it. And generally, I'm rather disappointed in Bill Konigsberg's writing so that I'm not too keen on reading any more books by him. My favourite parts of the book were the essays that Rafe wrote for his teacher with the grading of the teacher at the end of them. In those essays Rafe was the most open about himself and his sexuality and those essays were therefore the only parts of the book where it felt like I somehow got to know this character better. But I still didn't like him because he was extremely selfish, ignorant and annoying and the author just expected the reader to be on Rafe's side just because he was the protagonist of the story. But I was definitely not on his side. There were anti-vegetarian comments in the book and I just didn't understand why they were necessary - but that's basically what I thought about pretty much everything in the book. CONCLUSION I really didn't like this book and that was mostly because I could never warm up to the main character Rafe. He actually got more and more ignorant and selfish throughout the story and suddenly started swearing all the time - which distanced me even more from him. Every time there was a conflict between Rafe and another person I was mostly on the other person's side because Rafe was just not likable and really treated everyone around him quite badly. So I rather forced myself through this book. And all of the detailed sports talk that I wasn't interested in didn't help my reading enjoyment either. All the characters around Rafe told him that his staying in the closet so that he could befriend "the cool kids" that he didn't even really like (but who did he even really like though?) was a bad idea and I thought so too. So I could never really relate to Rafe and just hoped that he would see what a stupid decision that had been early on in the book - but that wasn't the case. RATING I award this book with 2 out of 5 stars. SPOILER WARNING So, just some thoughts on the ending. I actually really liked that Rafe didn't get a happy ending because he did not deserve it at all. I was completely on Ben's side there. At the end, when Rafe was finally openly gay again, there was an interesting talk and discussion between the gay kids of the school and that was the best part of the whole book and I was so annoyed that the author hadn't included a scene like that earlier on. There was definitely so much potential in that one scene and I just wish that Rafe had re-come out earlier in the book so that more of those conversations could have happened. That way it just felt like such a waste of potential. 95% of the book had been this egocentric perspective of Rafe who I could never really relate to and I just wish the book had spent much more time on exploring other people with whom I could have probably identified a lot more than with Rafe.