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nickvu's review
4.0
I wish I had this book in HS. It would have saved me years of painfully romantic fumbling, attempting to piece together these lessons on my own.
Understandably, authors have to balance accessibility (keeping the reader's attention with pace, brevity, focusing on the target reader) against depth and inclusion (thorough explanation, representation). This author went strongly with the former. Important topics like consent are breezed through. It can feel more like a list of talking points than a guide. Maybe that's intentional, introducing the reader to subjects to research and experiment with on their own. However, the reader is certainly not introduced to non-traditional relationship structures, genders, or orientations, nor to power imbalance, therapy, and navigating parental expectations. Admittedly the book would need to be twice as long...which means there could be room for follow up books.
Overall, HUSH would be valuable for a majority of middle and high school boys. For the rest who don't fit the cookie cutter, there are still some good lessons but overall it may end up adding to the confusion. It would have gone a long way to add a one paragraph acknowledgement that this book is for cis straight monogamous boys, and that it is completely legit and dignified if you are not that.
And with that I will reiterate that I really could have used this book as a teen.
Understandably, authors have to balance accessibility (keeping the reader's attention with pace, brevity, focusing on the target reader) against depth and inclusion (thorough explanation, representation). This author went strongly with the former. Important topics like consent are breezed through. It can feel more like a list of talking points than a guide. Maybe that's intentional, introducing the reader to subjects to research and experiment with on their own. However, the reader is certainly not introduced to non-traditional relationship structures, genders, or orientations, nor to power imbalance, therapy, and navigating parental expectations. Admittedly the book would need to be twice as long...which means there could be room for follow up books.
Overall, HUSH would be valuable for a majority of middle and high school boys. For the rest who don't fit the cookie cutter, there are still some good lessons but overall it may end up adding to the confusion. It would have gone a long way to add a one paragraph acknowledgement that this book is for cis straight monogamous boys, and that it is completely legit and dignified if you are not that.
And with that I will reiterate that I really could have used this book as a teen.
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