John R. Petrie

It's time to stop dragging my feet, admit I'm not going to be able to finish this, and write the review.

On the plus side, this debut novel has a distinctive voice and a truly YA feel. Despite being the quarterback of his high-school football team, Dylan is prone to an endearing amount of adolescent awkwardness and self-doubt. Watching his first attempts at flirting was funny and sweet. He's basically a kind, generous soul, and it was no hardship to spend time inside his head. By 50% I was cruising along, thinking what an awesome find this book would be for gay kids, because...

(~~ Things may get a little spoiler-y from here on out, so consider yourself warned ~~)

...No abusive family! No homophobic relatives! When Dylan comes out, his friends and teammates support him! Welcome to 2018, everyone! We can finally have fun, sweet stories about gay kids -- stories that aren't all about them being hated on and punished for being who they are!

Oh, wait. Apparently we can't.

Instead what we get -- at least what *I* got out of this -- was the message: You're going to get beaten up, gay kid. It doesn't matter that your family accepts you. It doesn't matter that your friends accept you. It doesn't matter that your coach and your entire team accept you. Never let your guard down, because someday, sometime, when you're least expecting it -- like, say, when you're in a safe place and wearing headphones -- you'll be jumped and savagely beaten by a gang of your homophobic peers, and if you're lucky a random adult will walk by and interrupt it so that you wake up in the hospital instead of never waking up at all. Oh, and have a good life!

Well, what more can I say after that. I did stick with the book a bit longer, until it took another trope-y turn, one that rang false and felt like faux drama -- and that was it for me. What a shame the author chose this type of tired old plot device for his first novel. He's talented and I'd be open to reading him again, but I'll be very leery that he'll just keep rehashing ugly old tropes.

DNF @ about 75%, seriously bummed out. I'm giving it 3 stars only because it's a debut novel and I don't want to stomp on the author's firstborn.… (mais)

Plot:
Dylan knows exactly what he wants: to finish high school, to get a football scholarship, go to college and then come out to his friends and family from the safety of distance. But when his grades start slipping, he might lose it all. So he asks Tommy for help, the smartest guy in school and also, unnervingly, exactly Dylan’s type. But Tommy doesn’t appear to be interested and in his desperation, Dylan accidentally tells his team that he is gay, disrupting all of his plans and setting him up for a major readjustment – and a fight for Tommy’s heart.

The Quarterback’s Crush really is pure sugar. It has sweet characters, a healthy dose of escapism and goes down like nothing. I blazed through it and enjoyed every second.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2019/01/05/the-quarterbacks-crush-john-r-petrie/… (mais)