Tom Dolby provides a distinctive "coming of age" story here, focusing on two young men during their final year of high school. This story stands out because the two boys are quite different so the reader gets two diverse points of view. Ethan, who comes from California, is artistic, intelligent, and shy. Todd is from New York and is much more outgoing, with lots of friends and even a girlfriend. Ethan's parents are still together, though his mother has cancer and is terminal. Todd's father left the family when he and his brother were young; his mother is a rich, successful author. When Ethan joins a prep school in New England and meets Todd, their lives are forever changed. They both develop a friendship with a young teacher, Hannah McClellan; however, Ethan becomes romantically involved with Hannah and things quickly get out of control. On the other hand, Todd realizes he has feelings for Ethan which seem even more real than anything he felt for his past girlfriends.
Dolby manages to capture some of the difficulties of growing up for both straight and gay men. I liked the characters and sympathized with them, seeing different things I went through at that age. The story did feel a bit predictable at times; however, the way Todd's crush on Ethan and Ethan's reaction were handled was refreshingly different from the standard presentation seen in most fiction. I still would've preferred more attention paid to Todd and his issues; it felt like more of the book dealt with Ethan's relationship with Hannah, though the attention was more evenly split toward the beginning. Overall, I appreciated this book because it felt so real and it was interesting to see the characters mature. Ethan learned a lot more about the world while Todd learned some important things about himself.
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