Book Reviews

Book Blurb

When sixteen-year-old Randy Clark discovers he’s gay, there’s only one thing to do – find a boyfriend. But how to do that? His best friend Blake is too busy dreaming about Marilyn and bugging him to join the school play to be any help, so Randy turns to his Art class pals Jeremy Smith and the outrageous Annie Brock. But Randy keeps getting attracted to the wrong boys and Annie’s help sends him off in the wrong direction. Between school bullies, would be athletes in P. E., and Chadham High’s first interracial couple, Randy’s sophomore year is getting complicated!

 

Book Review

Growing up is never easy, but growing up gay in a small-minded town toward the end of the 1970s is a potential minefield of missteps and unwanted attention. Huston Piner does a great job cataloguing the ups and downs of high school as experienced by Randy Clark, a tenth-grader with a tendency to overdramatize and the knack for becoming entangled in complex situations. The narrative took me on a journey of friendship, misunderstandings, and falling in love, all told with authenticity and a healthy dose of humor.

It's taken sixteen years of denial and disinterest in girls for Randy to admit he's gay, but now that he has, he faces a conundrum—how to find himself a boyfriend. After the disastrous occasion that saw him informing a fellow student he had nice eyes—the boy hasn't spoken to him since—Randy is wary of making another blunder. How to even tell whether a guy is gay or not? Unsure where to turn, he enlists the help of his art friends, the flamboyant Annie Brock and reserved Jeremy Smith, both of whom are more than happy to give Randy the benefit of their advice.

Yet landing the perfect boyfriend proves far harder than Randy anticipates. Between misread signs, awkward fumbles, and sordid encounters that leave him feeling used and humiliated, his confidence plummets. The one bright spot in Randy's life is his budding friendship with Kerry Sawyer, the new boy with the beautiful eyes. From Kerry's first day at Chadham High, the two have been inseparable, and Randy can't deny a mounting attraction. But Kerry is straight, and even if he weren't, would he really be interested in such a hopeless case?

'Conjoined at the Soul' is an enormously fun read, littered with laugh-out-loud moments and some so cringeworthy they had me squirming in embarrassment. For all its light-heartedness, however, the story has a serious undertone. It harks back to a time, not that long ago, when homophobia and racism weren't merely prevalent, but considered acceptable. Most of all though, what I took away from this novel was a message of hope. Amidst the intolerance, there will always be individuals waiting to offer encouragement and support to those who need it most.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Prizm Books for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	Novel, 241 pages/70600 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	18-February-2015
Price	$5.99 ebook
Buy Link	http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=83&products_id=4356