Different For Boys by Patrick Ness

Abstract

Reviewed by: Different For Boys by Patrick Ness Sarah Sahn Ness, Patrick Different For Boys; illus. by Tea Bendix. Walker, 2023 [104p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536228892 $18.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 10-12 What does it mean to lose your virginity? Is it when you ______? Or ______? Such questions preoccupy Ant Stevenson, because he’s done everything that would qualify, but he still feels like a virgin—maybe because Charlie has made it clear that fooling around together doesn’t make them gay. They’ve been sleeping together for almost a year, since Charlie spent Christmas with Ant’s family to escape his mom’s drunkenness, but while they can ____, kissing is off the table, and at school Charlie will go right back to his homophobic bullying of their classmate Jack. This spare, affecting novella takes place over the first week of eleventh grade, zeroing in on the dynamics between Ant, Charlie, Jack, and Josh, who just returned after having moved away seven years earlier. Josh encourages Ant to try out for the football team with him, which makes Charlie jealous at the same time he’s threatened by Ant’s desire for greater intimacy. Ant is forced to reckon with the disconnect between the Charlie he knows behind closed doors and the Charlie who’s only become a bigger bully to Jack since sleeping with Ant. Ant’s first-person narration moves between the present day, his history with Charlie and Jack, and his reflections on love, sex, and friendship with appealing raw-edged frankness and humor, complemented by Tea Bendix’s sketch and collage artwork. Black boxes hide swearing and explicit sexual content, which invites scathing comment from Ant—“we’re too young to read about the stuff we actually do”—skewering adult preoccupations with vulgarity as he also ponders what can and can’t be spoken, and what truths are appropriate for adult eyes and ears. “Parents say they want to know the truth . . . but they never really mean it,” he tells Jack; likewise, some moments may belong behind black boxes because he chooses to keep them private, like losing his virginity, which Ant decides is something he gets to define for himself. Ness takes on the often under-explored social dynamics among teenage boys with nuance and subtlety that will leave readers thinking long after they turn the final page. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois