Lately, I tried to catch up on some short story reading, and after finishing Tana French's The Likeness, I feel my excursion into the bleak world of beach reads has lasted long enough.
Last Saturday I did read Freaks and Revelations in one sitting. Toward from the alternating points of view of two teens growing up in mid '80s, the novel is a manifesto of survival. One of the boys, a violent, substance-abuser embraces punk, is exploring the world through his anger, and the other, a young 13-year-old boy who has been kicked out of his mom's house for coming out as gay learns how to hustle on the streets of San Francisco and LA. What struck me as most surprising about the book was how much you sympathize with both characters, especially the punk kid, whom who witness become more and more hateful as the story progresses. It's interesting to see the believable places from which this hate germinates, and then the entropic way it explodes to have a life of its own. For teens who like to censor what they read, this book is not for you; it's dark, gritty, troubling, and incredibly honest. In some ways I wonder how this book could really change the conversation if it were required reading in classrooms. While I didn't find the ending very realistic, I had already gotten so much from the story and its characters, it didn't matter. How had I never heard of this book!?
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