Two Boys Kissing

I appreciate the author’s attempt to fully submerse herself back into an adolescent mindset in order to understand the complex issues of masculinity, sexuality and gender

The moral message apparent in this coming-of-age novel questions each of the teenage boys, who in various ways show us what it's like to grow up in rural Australia if you are smart or poor or of a different race. This moral message makes me question the past of the Australia I have came to

“The Boys in the Band”, is a play about male homosexual relationships and the revealing truths of being gay in the 1960s. The play gives audiences a distinct perspective of homosexuality on the stage up until that time. The setting is in a New York City apartment that is owned by Michael. He and his gay friends are preparing a birthday party for Harold. Alan McCarthy, a former college roommate of Michael, also shows up at the party unexpectedly. In this paper, we will focus on Alan and Harold and their behaviors and impacts in the play.

This novel “is a book that truly speaks to adolescents in contemporary language and with teenage characters about adolescent sexuality” (Kaplan 27). Katherine is learning about her sexuality in the novel.

“Territory” by David Leavitt is a short, yet complexly intimate tail of a mother’s futile attempts to accept her son’s homosexual identity and his on-going struggle with internalized homophobia. The story opens with twenty-three year old Neil visiting his mother, Mrs. Campbell, at his childhood home. As they prepare for the first arrival of Neil’s lover, Wayne, the anticipation triggers anxieties both Neil, causing him to have painful flashbacks of the past. As these images reveal, Neil has lived with feelings of shame, embarrassment and guilt over his sexual identity, as well as an exposure to the impactful role that his mother has played in his life. We are also made privy to the numerous effects of her emotional detachment, which she

As you read not only has wording made an influence in the piece but also incorporated is a different point of view. “Boys” is introduced to us in third person offering us a long distances shot of the progress as the boys age. In an interview Rick Moody states that the third person is the mother of the boys, narrating the story in an “understated way, she is the perceiver, their mother is the center piece of the story.” (Rick Moody) Viewing the story from a higher place gives the reader a sense of intimacy with the narrator being able to perceive the lives of the characters the “boys” in a different light, the reader becomes a witness to the events in the progression of the “boys’” lives.

Unreciprocated romantic feelings that are extremely difficult to control, especially during puberty, a time when one is filled with new and complex emotions they cannot comprehend. As a result we often tend to produce fictional scenarios that cater to our strong feelings. However, one must acknowledge the falsity of his/her imagination. Melanie McCabe’s “Paperboy” uses a vivid sense of imagery to convey the strong emotions of a pubescent girl toward an older boy, despite the fact that the boy will never feel the same way.

Craig Silveys remarkable novel Jasper Jones succeeds in its intention to address real issues facing young readers today. To a certain extent, significant life topics including the hardships adolescents face through a coming of age, the deep rooted fear of prejudice and the dark, struggle that is fear and courage are all expressed around the central protagonist Charlie and the small country town of Corrigan. In this essay I will give and insight to these issues, discussing how it involves and affects today youths.

S.E Hinton’s, “The Outsiders” and Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s ,“Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” are two young adult novels with greatly different stories yet support the same ideology. Both works focus on the lives of two teenage boys, Ponyboy, of Hinton’s novel, and Aristotle, of Sáenz’s. The story of Ponyboy takes place in the year 1969, and focuses on a huge but short period of his life. It tells about his struggle as an orphan under the care of his two older brothers and deals with gang violence, socioeconomic status, and death. Whereas, the story of Aristotle takes place during the 1980’s and covers a long period of his life and involves his experiences with his relationship with his hands-on parents, his sexual orientation, and struggling with his awkward years. There are many conceptions of what is appropriate for young readers, but these two novels defend that young people should be informed. By examining “The Outsiders” and “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe”, this ideology of communicating mature topics to these readers is supported as the characters of both novels deal with the challenges of belonging, identity, and staying true to themselves, as well as reinforce the notion that adolescents can benefit from this knowledge.

Two Boys Kissing delivers a narrative of seven characters named, Peter, Neil, Avery, Ryan, Harry, Craig, and Cooper. All the character has passed away due to the AIDS epidemic of the 80’s and 90’s. The novel begins with the story of tow fifty-year old boy’s named Neil and Peter, who have been dating for quite a while but have kept their relationship a secret from the outside world. Neil attempts to define what love means, and if he truly loves Peter. After Cooper Riggs has an altercation with his parents, he lashes out in the form of self-destructive activities. For the entire novel Riggs searches for acceptance from his parents, but finds acceptance from wrong characters. The readers are introduced to Ryan and Avery, who are the only homosexual

Rick Moody 's short story "Boys" is written with a distinct style. The author uses a form of a stream of consciousness to convey the purpose at hand, which encompasses writing as if without hesitation or editing - whatever came to Moody’s thoughts, he transferred to text. There was also a substantial use of the word “boys”, placing emphasis on the central meaning of the story. The style is thoroughly descriptive and fails to leave any details of the boys ' lives out. This quality donates a sense of reality and creates a bond between the reader and the characters. The tone of the story comes of as particularly unbiased and serious, as if the author were just stating purely factual information. As events become more somber in the boys ' lives, the author approaches a more sympathetic tone. The boys were supposed to be kids, fooling around playing games and living a care-free childhood, but these boys found themselves in scenarios no boy or child should ever encompass.

“Lust,” describes a young teenage girl who has mischievous meetings with many boys. The narrator, which is the young girl, attends Casey Academy which is a coed school. She is sexually active and does not fear pregnancy because she has been taking birth control pills since she was a young girl. The narrator describes her sexual expected gathering with the fifteen different boys she has been with, and when she talks about them she seems emotionally removed from the experience. The narrator’s parents don’t have a clue about what she has been getting herself into: “My parents had no idea. Parents never really know what’s going on, especially when you’re away at school most of the time. If she met them, my mother might say, “Oliver seems nice” or “I like that one” without much of an opinion...” (1029). The narrator’s parents do not show much interest in her life which can be a reason to why she craves

Psychologists usually agree that the teenage years are among the most difficult periods in one’s life. Most teens are trying to figure out who they are, what they believe, and how they fit into the world around them. Beginning in the late 1970’s, a whole genre of fiction, referred to as coming-of-age literature, emerged and serves, at least for many teens, as believable presentations of young people learning to navigate the difficulties of their lives, often fraught with feelings of rejection, seemingly unresolvable personal turmoil, social problems, school and family issues, etc. Indeed one value of reading is to see and better understand some aspect of ourselves through studying others. The reading of SPEAK, a somewhat controversial book

This is a novel-length collection of 63,000 words, and touches upon the tough and rough, tender and caring, and dominating and submissive sides of gay M/M steamy romance. It explores the mountain-moving strength of love to the burning flames of passion.

In his novel The Hours, Michael Cunningham creates a dazzling fabric of queer references managing to intertwine the lives of three different women into one smooth narrative. In this essay, I will discuss what makes The Hours queer literature, how the novel has contributed to the queer genre, the cultural significance of the novel, and I will discuss several points made in Jeanette McVicker’s critical article “Gaps and Absences in The Hours.” My aim, however, is not to say that Michael Cunningham’s The Hours is strictly a queer novel, but to highlight what makes the novel queer and to discuss Cunningham’s idea of sexual orientation as a fluid entity.