Autoboyography by Christina Lauren
Rating: 3 stars
Tanner is an 18 year old bisexual kid whose family moved to a very Mormon community in Utah and he is forced to go back into the closet. His family is aware and extremely accepting of his sexuality, but they live in fear that the community will find out and he will end up hurt. Tanner has a best friend Autumn who is not to secretly in love with him. Tanner and Autumn take a seminar their last semester of high school that requires them to write a full length book by the end. Helping teach the class is Sebastian, son of the local bishop, a boy whose book from the year before is about to be published. Tanner and Sebastian immediately feel a connection and begin to explore the possibility of the relationship they’d truly want with each other.
The main theme of this book is being comfortable with your own sexuality and learning how to deal with it if people will not accept you for who you are. Tanner is fortunate that his family is incredibly supportive of him and they have excellent relationships with each other. Sebastian is highly religious and though he knows that he’s never been attracted to a girl, he refuses to admit that he might actually be gay. Coming out – and acting on said attraction – would ostracize him from his family and his LDS community. The boys struggle with their extreme attraction to each other, while needing to keep their relationship in secret, living in fear of the wrong person finding out.
This book definitely has some heartbreaking moments. It makes you think about the kind of person you would aspire to be if your own son/brother/friend came out as gay or bisexual. Tanner’s parents’ accepting nature lead them to an amazing family dynamic, whereas Sebastian even suggesting the possibility of him being attracted to men leads to his entire family giving him the silent treatment for weeks. It’s really sad. Overall, the storyline made for some great YA. I just wasn’t extremely interested in all the LDS stuff, which makes up a pretty big portion of the book.
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