Customer Reviews

Act Well Your Part

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thought this novel was great. Much better than Nancy Garden's very similar "Good Moon Rising." I agree that the high school is unbelievably liberal for the 1980's. However, it was refreshing to read a YA novel featuring a gay protagonist who is not wracked with guilt and who is not punished in the end. I also found the sex scenes to be very realistic without being too explicit.

Teen romances are seldom considered great literature. But, they do serve a purpose. They provide characters who echo the everyday questions and insecurities that plague budding relationships. The problems Keith faces are problems faced by many young people. He moves to a new town and enters a new school. He is far away from his best friend. And, he is falling in love with another boy in the theater group. The interesting thing about this book and its sequel, "Lucky in Love," is that it portrays prejudice as a very human thing. The homophobia exhibited in the book arises from the jealousy of the heterosexual characters. This book fills a void felt by many of us by giving back the dignity of romance.

This was the first book I read as a teenager that identified with the feelings I was having. I think it is a great book, perhaps somewhat predictable (in retrospect), but overall it was exactly what I needed.

Sakers does a nice job of mixing the boy-boy romance with the quotidian aspects of high school life. The characterizations are uneven, and the attempts at humor are often strained, but for a 12 to 15 year old, this is a passable read.

It's a boy-meets-boy, boy-not-sure-if-boy-likes-him, boy-comes-out-to-supportive-mom, boy-gets-boy, boy-is-defended-by-boy-from-cruel-"friends" kind of novel. Got the idea? Overall, it's nice and sweet and everything, but I have to say, it's a tad too predictable, and it wraps up ever-so-nicely, with everyone liking everyone else at the end. One of its positives, though, is to present to gay teenagers an idea that it's OK to fall in love in high school, and it's OK to express it and to defend it.

...doesn't mean that this book can get away with a high rating! In my continuous search for romantic, well-written alternative fiction, Act Well Your Part was yet another let-down. The mediocre writing left me thinking I had read much smoother and detailed works online. The relationship between the boys was perhaps realistic, but highly under-developed. The characters were flat, and the high school they attended was unbelievably liberal, especially for the 80's.
In short, this is a quick story with a couple cute moments, but marred by noticeably bad writing and sickeningly cheesy scenes.