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capyval's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
I like the way this book was written, but sometimes it sounded too melodramatic. Still, I think Levithan's writing is superb and a pleasure to read.
One big warning, though, if you are sensitive to descriptions of homophobia you will have a hard time with this book, and the same goes if AIDS is something that triggers you. Approach this book cautiously, because it has a lot of positive things on it, but also many sad parts
One big warning, though, if you are sensitive to descriptions of homophobia you will have a hard time with this book, and the same goes if AIDS is something that triggers you. Approach this book cautiously, because it has a lot of positive things on it, but also many sad parts
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Medical content, and Terminal illness
mbrogs2024's review against another edition
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia, Suicide attempt, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Bullying
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Pedophilia, Body shaming, and Child death
dunnadam's review against another edition
5.0
I really liked this book.
I feel it offered something to the new generation of gay men while at the same time showing them the past. I had put off reading this for a little while as the concept of a book being narrated by a Greek chorus seemed overworked and clichéd but I found it worked remarkably well. There's a few separate stories here, they all build to a crescendo that had me flipping pages like crazy at the end.
The book is well done, telling timeless tales of parent's disappointment, parent's support, and the power of will and love. There's great morals along the way from the voice of the experienced:
"Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do."
I found myself wanting to grow up in this "two boys kissing" world, while at the same time realizing how much further there is still to go.
I feel it offered something to the new generation of gay men while at the same time showing them the past. I had put off reading this for a little while as the concept of a book being narrated by a Greek chorus seemed overworked and clichéd but I found it worked remarkably well. There's a few separate stories here, they all build to a crescendo that had me flipping pages like crazy at the end.
The book is well done, telling timeless tales of parent's disappointment, parent's support, and the power of will and love. There's great morals along the way from the voice of the experienced:
"Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do."
I found myself wanting to grow up in this "two boys kissing" world, while at the same time realizing how much further there is still to go.
bethany6788's review against another edition
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
This book follows a few boys, guided by angels of men who died in the generations before them. Men who lost their battle with AIDS. Harry and Craig want to beat the kissing record for world’s longest kiss. Ryan and Avery (I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM AGAIN!!!) are seen from a distance and we watch them fall in love. Cooper is trying to fill the empty feeling inside. Neil and Peter are trying to figure out their love.
*spoilers*
I truly am in awe of this book. I finished it earlier today and had to sit with it before I could even come up with coherent thoughts. I could only add 9 quotes to this post (swipe through to see them) and I only was able to get to 50% of this novel before I ran out of space. It’s full of wise words. Full of advice. Full of love. Full of bravery. Honesty. Heart.
I absolutely adored this one. I don’t have any more words but here are a couple extra quotes:
“There are all these moments you don’t think you will survive. And then you survive.”
“Doubt is an acceptable risk for happiness.”
“This is what we don’t admit about first kisses: One of the most gratifying things about them is that they are proof, actual proof, that the other person wants to kiss us. We are desirable. We desire. Every kiss that matters contains a recognition at its core.”
“It’s one of the secrets of strength: We’re so much more likely to find it in the service of others than we are to find it in service to ourselves.“
*spoilers*
I truly am in awe of this book. I finished it earlier today and had to sit with it before I could even come up with coherent thoughts. I could only add 9 quotes to this post (swipe through to see them) and I only was able to get to 50% of this novel before I ran out of space. It’s full of wise words. Full of advice. Full of love. Full of bravery. Honesty. Heart.
I absolutely adored this one. I don’t have any more words but here are a couple extra quotes:
“There are all these moments you don’t think you will survive. And then you survive.”
“Doubt is an acceptable risk for happiness.”
“This is what we don’t admit about first kisses: One of the most gratifying things about them is that they are proof, actual proof, that the other person wants to kiss us. We are desirable. We desire. Every kiss that matters contains a recognition at its core.”
“It’s one of the secrets of strength: We’re so much more likely to find it in the service of others than we are to find it in service to ourselves.“
bettielovesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
This book should be a required reading for parents more than teenagers, not because I don’t think teenagers should read it, but because I think it’s important parents of teenagers understand how our words and reactions or lack thereof affects our kids, what consequences they bring, what our acceptance of lack of acceptance do to them.
I really enjoyed this book, even when it broke my heart, I had a hard at the beginning with the lack of dialogue but the stories and the narrator view kept going til the end.
I really enjoyed this book, even when it broke my heart, I had a hard at the beginning with the lack of dialogue but the stories and the narrator view kept going til the end.
mmmlysaght's review against another edition
Honestly, I couldn't get any farther than the first chapter, though I desperately wanted to. The narrative device of the voices of dead (and very specifically gay male) HIV/AIDS victims was alienating in a way that was not intentional enough to have been a choice of the author. The amount of interjections by these depressed (though claiming to be preaching optimism) voices made it impossible to really connect with any of the characters immediately - a distinct and unfortunate change from the charming and compelling characters Levithan created off the bat in Boy Meets Boy.
Back to the topic of gay male characters, Levithan's treatment of queer women is, in a word, uncomfortable. As he swings between the many distinct characters he is hoping to weave together later in the narrative, we revisit Ryan, Neil, Cooper, Tariq - but the most that is said about female-
identified queer characters is "And girls … girls wearing all these things, driving to the same place," before the dead male characters go on to talk about how girls were once their fake dates or gay best friends. They exist entirely for and about the male characters. The one exception is Avery, a trans male character, who through his self-identification becomes one of the gay male characters about whom this entire book is about.
Admittedly, with a title like Two Boys Kissing, I cant claim to be mislead, but there is something incredibly off-putting about a queer manifesto which alienates not only straight readers but fellow members of the LGBTQ community.
Back to the topic of gay male characters, Levithan's treatment of queer women is, in a word, uncomfortable. As he swings between the many distinct characters he is hoping to weave together later in the narrative, we revisit Ryan, Neil, Cooper, Tariq - but the most that is said about female-
identified queer characters is "And girls … girls wearing all these things, driving to the same place," before the dead male characters go on to talk about how girls were once their fake dates or gay best friends. They exist entirely for and about the male characters. The one exception is Avery, a trans male character, who through his self-identification becomes one of the gay male characters about whom this entire book is about.
Admittedly, with a title like Two Boys Kissing, I cant claim to be mislead, but there is something incredibly off-putting about a queer manifesto which alienates not only straight readers but fellow members of the LGBTQ community.
eesh25's review against another edition
5.0
Two Boys Kissing is another gem by David Levithan. Yeah, I've only read two other books by him, but I loved those two other book as well. I'm considering that a good sign.
Now, instead of doing the synopsis near the beginning like I usually do, it's going to be an ongoing thing. I'll start off by mentioning the narrative because it's a peculiar one.
The novel is told from the perspective of AIDS victims of the late 1900s, before the disease had been identified and before there was research for medicine. I didn't initially connect the dots to the history of AIDS, but the narrative is kind of the collective voice of the initial victims, most of whom were homosexual men. AIDS was even called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) for a brief period of time.
The story is told in a way that seems as if those men are overlooking the lives of people living now, homosexual men especially, to see how they're doing. This method of storytelling may not be everyone's cup of tea but I liked it. It took a few chapters to get used to but it was an interesting, and good, choice.
The book follows multiple characters. The novel's namesake are two boys, Harry and Craig, and they're kissing because they want to set the world record for the longest kiss (which is over 32 hours long, by the way). They used to be a couple but they're not anymore. Their story is them trying to navigate they relationship and, you know, the whole... kissing for 32 hours thing.
Then we have Peter and Neil. They're a couple and have been for a year. Their parts show us what a normal relationship is like, on a regular basis. It's not something we get to see often in YA because the stories featured are of the how-they-got-together variety. And I gotta say, while it wasn't something exciting or dramatic, it was engaging. I loved seeing them together and reading what is possibly one of the most realistic representations of a romantic relationship.
The third pair we have are (is?) Avery and Ryan. They've just met and this is the classic meet-cute. And it really is very cute. So we have three pairs in different stages of a relationship.
Last, we have Cooper. He's on his own, he's lonely and he's depressed. He's trying to figure things out but he has no hope that he'll ever be okay. His family isn't the kind to be supportive of his sexuality, and that made Cooper's story difficult. His narrative (which David Levithan does a fantastic job with) is sad and he will totally make you cry.
Overall, we have four stories that aren't really connected but still feel like they are thanks to the way the book is written. I found this novel to be beautiful and I highly recommend reading it.
futurama1979's review against another edition
3.0
Disclaimer: I read this book for a class.
I have a lot of complicated feelings about it and I don't think I'll be able to voice them correctly. This book had a huge impact on me. I cried my eyes out over single lines multiple times while reading it; I was physically shaking reading the entire ending.
The good:
It was a really lovingly written book. Levithan clearly has not just respect but so much love for the generation before him and the generation after him. The narration of this book is the shining star. In fact, the actual "narrative", the story of the six teens followed in the book, is really more a background for the message of the narration to the reader. This book is the narration; the narrative is secondary. In any other YA, prioritizing an adult voice like this and basically scrapping a lot of the relatability of your teen characters by watching them from an outside perspective would not have worked. I don't think I've seen any other YA author try to pull this off and I doubt they could have. The fact that it worked - and so, so well - here is a testament to Levithan's strength of voice and strength of genuine emotion.
I loved so, so many lines in it. Here's some of the power and grace of Levithan's simple syntax:
"It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die."
"We wish we could show you the world as it sleeps. Then you’d never have any doubt about how similar, how trusting, how astounding and vulnerable we all are."
"We tried to tell them what was happening. We tried to tell them the disease was spreading. We needed doctors. We needed scientists. Most of all, we needed money, and to get money, we needed attention. We put our lives in other people’s hands, and for the most part, they looked at us blankly and said, What lives? What hands?"
The bad:
This book was painfully white. And that is not me complaining that a white author is writing stories he is comfortable or familiar with. That is me saying you physically cannot accurately write about the AIDS crisis without doing so from an intersectional point of view. HIV has always, since it was first discovered, affected the Black community disproportionately, more so than it ever affected the white community. This is well known information and if you don't know it you can find it with one Google search. And yet that is completely unstated and untouched on and not reflected in this book. The voice, the experience, is presented collectively, but presented as a uniform white experience, or, perhaps even worse, a diverse collective who in death have lost their own stories and blend into one voice which Levithan writes as 'colourblind,' which in this case means white. The gay experience that white people have is the experience presented, their only minority being their sexuality, and it supersedes any intersectional voice or experience that could have been written.
Worse than that, unfortunately, while he gave three out of six of his characters nonwhite names, Levithan did not put in any work to show how their intersectional identities differ from their white gay friends or partners. In fact, they didn't have intersectional identities at all. Their race was a nonfactor, which is utterly unrealistic. A Black gay experience will always be different from a white gay experience. A Korean gay experience, especially a first generation Korean-American gay experience, will be worlds apart from a white gay experience. This book is probably more meaningful to a white gay person, to whom it seems accurate, than it was to me as a non-white gay person, to whom it was an utterly incomplete picture. Our identities are not separate; they are not isolated parts of us, they are innately entwined and make us one complete person, one complete experience. You cannot write a Black gay character and remove his Blackness from his gayness. Sorry, Levithan.
And to that point, an apology to the character of Tariq: I am sorry Levithan made you a victim of violent trauma just to buoy his white characters turning your pain and fear into their public social justice stunt, and I am sorry he sidelined you as support for those characters for the rest of the novel instead of letting you fight for yourself, and I am sorry he never gave you the time and space to find your joy like he gave most of his other characters.
I have a lot of complicated feelings about it and I don't think I'll be able to voice them correctly. This book had a huge impact on me. I cried my eyes out over single lines multiple times while reading it; I was physically shaking reading the entire ending.
The good:
It was a really lovingly written book. Levithan clearly has not just respect but so much love for the generation before him and the generation after him. The narration of this book is the shining star. In fact, the actual "narrative", the story of the six teens followed in the book, is really more a background for the message of the narration to the reader. This book is the narration; the narrative is secondary. In any other YA, prioritizing an adult voice like this and basically scrapping a lot of the relatability of your teen characters by watching them from an outside perspective would not have worked. I don't think I've seen any other YA author try to pull this off and I doubt they could have. The fact that it worked - and so, so well - here is a testament to Levithan's strength of voice and strength of genuine emotion.
I loved so, so many lines in it. Here's some of the power and grace of Levithan's simple syntax:
"It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die."
"We wish we could show you the world as it sleeps. Then you’d never have any doubt about how similar, how trusting, how astounding and vulnerable we all are."
"We tried to tell them what was happening. We tried to tell them the disease was spreading. We needed doctors. We needed scientists. Most of all, we needed money, and to get money, we needed attention. We put our lives in other people’s hands, and for the most part, they looked at us blankly and said, What lives? What hands?"
The bad:
This book was painfully white. And that is not me complaining that a white author is writing stories he is comfortable or familiar with. That is me saying you physically cannot accurately write about the AIDS crisis without doing so from an intersectional point of view. HIV has always, since it was first discovered, affected the Black community disproportionately, more so than it ever affected the white community. This is well known information and if you don't know it you can find it with one Google search. And yet that is completely unstated and untouched on and not reflected in this book. The voice, the experience, is presented collectively, but presented as a uniform white experience, or, perhaps even worse, a diverse collective who in death have lost their own stories and blend into one voice which Levithan writes as 'colourblind,' which in this case means white. The gay experience that white people have is the experience presented, their only minority being their sexuality, and it supersedes any intersectional voice or experience that could have been written.
Worse than that, unfortunately, while he gave three out of six of his characters nonwhite names, Levithan did not put in any work to show how their intersectional identities differ from their white gay friends or partners. In fact, they didn't have intersectional identities at all. Their race was a nonfactor, which is utterly unrealistic. A Black gay experience will always be different from a white gay experience. A Korean gay experience, especially a first generation Korean-American gay experience, will be worlds apart from a white gay experience. This book is probably more meaningful to a white gay person, to whom it seems accurate, than it was to me as a non-white gay person, to whom it was an utterly incomplete picture. Our identities are not separate; they are not isolated parts of us, they are innately entwined and make us one complete person, one complete experience. You cannot write a Black gay character and remove his Blackness from his gayness. Sorry, Levithan.
And to that point, an apology to the character of Tariq: I am sorry Levithan made you a victim of violent trauma just to buoy his white characters turning your pain and fear into their public social justice stunt, and I am sorry he sidelined you as support for those characters for the rest of the novel instead of letting you fight for yourself, and I am sorry he never gave you the time and space to find your joy like he gave most of his other characters.