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Openly straight
542 pages
A funny, heartfelt exploration of what happens when the desire to shed labels accidentally means shedding your true self.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting in a dorm room late at night, listening to a smart, funny friend untangle the messy realities of growing up. The narrative moves at a brisk, engaging clip, driven by a wry and conversational voice that effortlessly balances laugh-out-loud humor with genuine teenage angst. It captures the specific, warm atmosphere of an all-boys boarding school, exploring the blurry lines between male friendship, intimacy, and romance. The emotional texture shifts from a lighthearted social experiment into something much more vulnerable and complex as the protagonist wrestles with the suffocating weight of both labels and the closet. It is a perfect fit for anyone who delights in earnest, character-driven stories about the messy, beautiful work of figuring out exactly who you are.
- Mood
- warm
- angsty
- collegiate
- hopeful
- Tone
- wry
- earnest
- conversational
- humorous
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- the burden of labels · authentic identity · male intimacy and friendship · self-concealment · queer coming-of-age
- The writing
- Accessible, witty, and deeply conversational, reading like the unfiltered thoughts of a smart, slightly confused teenager.
- The arc
- Begins as a lighthearted, slightly misguided social experiment and deepens into a messy, heartfelt realization about the cost of hiding who you are.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love character-driven YA contemporaries that balance laugh-out-loud humor with genuine explorations of queer identity and boarding school dynamics.
Content notes
- homophobia
- internalized homophobia
- underage drinking
- bullying
About the book
Rafe has been out since eighth grade, and he's fine with it, and so is everyone else. But sometimes he just wants to be a regular guy, not the gay guy. So when he transfers to an all-boys' boarding school in New England, he decides to become "openly straight" instead. The transformation works: Rafe revels in a new group of straight guy friends and the freedom of living without a label. But then he falls in love with one of his new friends... who doesn't even know that love is a possibility.
Description from Open Library.
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