Bad Boy [Paperback]

Diana Wieler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 1997

A.J. Brandiosa becomes the bad boy of the Cyclone hockey team, and learns that his best friend is gay, as he tries to cope with his own sexuality during his senior year in high school.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Full of action and dramatic tension, this story set in Canada reveals the problems of a high school hockey player during his first year on a Triple A team. A. J. Brandiosa's elation in making the Cyclones is undercut by the fear he will not measure up to the other players. The 17-year-old's hot temper and aggressiveness in the game soon bring him the wrong kind of notoriety. Trying to dispel his reputation for being a "bad boy" on the ice is not the only challenge A. J. faces. Even more difficult is his struggle to accept that his best friend and teammate, Tully Brown, is gay. After A. J.'s initial shock over this news wears off, the boy begins to question his own sexuality. Besides relating the dynamics of amateur hockey, Wieler ( Last Chance Summer ) explores the psychology of a confused adolescent trying to prove his manhood. The topics of homosexuality and peer pressures are dealt with openly yet with delicacy; messages regarding tolerance and self-control are effectively conveyed. Ages 13-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 8-12-- After he and his best friend, Tulsa Brown, are selected for the high school ice hockey team, 16-year-old A. J. Brandiosa is suddenly confronted with a multitude of crises. With his coach's encouragement, he becomes an ``enforcer''--someone whose main job is to make cheap, violent hits against opposing players. While the boy comes to terms with his new role, he discovers that Tulsa is gay. To further complicate his life, his secret crush on Tulsa's sister becomes public just as his friendship with Tulsa is deteriorating. In addition, his father brings home a female friend who is closer in age to A. J. As the boy works through his confusion and pain, he clarifies his own relationships, eventually emerging as a winner on all counts. The fast-paced hockey action is only a backdrop to the off-rink clashes that are told by an omniscient narrator who leaves little to the imagination regarding what the protagonists are thinking and doing; this helps clarify any uncertainty about plot or character, but it also increases the story's predictability. Important questions are raised about homosexuality, high school sports, single parents, and male sexism. This is an issue-laden story that is rescued by the carefully delineated main characters, although more discriminating readers might be dubious about how neatly the conflicts are resolved. --Jack Forman, Mesa College Library, San Diego
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 191 pages
• Publisher: Groundwood Books (February 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888990839
• ISBN-13: 978-0888990839
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,163,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great teen novel for the gay jock in your family, September 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Boy (Paperback)

One of few novels about teenage athletes that deals with gay subject matter, Bad Boy is one of my favorites, a sweet and touching story that also deals with related issues of violence and growing up. When my young cousin came out and suffered some problems on his football team, I gave him a copy. He found it inspirational. He doesn't play hockey, but learned how to balance being athletic with dealing with his sexuality. - Stan G.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Award-winning and powerful, April 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Bad Boy (Paperback)

This book is the winner of eight awards - including those from the American Library Association, the Canadian Library Association and Canada's most prestigious award, the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature. And it's obvious why.

The Canadian Children's Book Centre says, "Wieler's characters are well rounded and real. Even minor figures like Coach Landau are fully alive on the page. Main characters particularly change and grow, their reactions and development interesting and plausible. At the close of Bad Boy the reader knows that A.J., Tully and Summer will continue to grow not only in relation to one another but in their own right as well. .. (Wieler) has created one of the best young adult novels to be written by a Canadian, a book which is gripping and thoughtful and moving. Bad Boy is controversial...but adolescent readers who are kept from it will be deprived of one of the most important reading experiences of this or any other year"

This is a powerful book, and highly recommended. Both my teenagers loved it - one son and one daughter -- and couldn't put it down. Diana Wieler has become a real favourite in our house.

5.0 out of 5 stars Bad Boy: Great YA Novel with Gay Character: One of the Best, September 10, 2010

By 

Bob Drake "BobDrake" (Bronx, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bad Boy (Paperback)

I saw this award-winning Canadian novel mentioned by a college student who had found it invaluable for his coming out in high school, and I can understand why.

A.J. is a 16 year old hockey player in Moose Jaw, Saskatchuwan, on the sparsely-populated Canadian prairie, who is desperately trying to put his baby fat behind him. To that end he bought a second-hand weight set which sits in the basement of his best friend's home. Tully, named Tulsa after the Oklahoma city where his formerly hippy parents probably conceived him, is a golden-haired, air-guitar playing social wizard, beloved by all. A.J. likes spending time at Tully's home because he has a family, including a sister, Summer, who mesmerizes him, whereas A.J. only has his father whose work schedule does not allow much interaction.

Both A.J. and Tully try out for the local Triple-A hockey team and, in a surprise to them both, they make it, though A.J., who tends to watch the puck rather than the game, knows he is marginal in the coach's eyes. Much as A.J. reveres Tully he knows that Tully has a dark side that may include hashish use. But Tully has a classic bright red Ford Mustang with a leather interior and a V-8 engine, and there is no place that A.J. feels more at ease than in the passenger seat with his best friend driving, headlights cutting through the vastness of the prairie. A.J. rarely talks, but Tully always listens, and as they cruise together to school and to hockey practice Tully and his car are A.J.'s refuge.

But Tully has a secret that involves a mean-spirited member of the same team, Derek, who attends a different high school. When A.J., at Summer's request, tries to track Tully down one night by bicycle, he spots the red Mustang near a bar which, A.J. discovers, has same-sex clientele. In his rush to leave he crashes into Tully who has Derek's arm draped over his shoulder. This event occurs in mid-book. The rest of the book deals with A.J.'s reaction to what he sees as a violation of his trust by Summer's brother and his former best friend.

The book has aged well over twenty years. There is nothing to date it except for the mention of $1 bills, since Canada moved to $1 coins years ago. It is such an excellent book that it should be on the required reading list in high schools. Diana Wieler creates narrative and events and situations that transcend most YA novels. It is truly one of the best.