What They Always Tell Us, by Martin Wilson

So, based on this comment by Brent, LGBT teen blogger extraordinaire…

Destinie and I spent our days in Borders and on Amazon.com looking for gay characters. The only ones we could find were the ones in the adult section (not that we were complaining! Have you read those steamy, passionate sex scenes? *Sigh*). I found one that seemed like what we were looking for. What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson. I read it. Then Destinie read it. We talked about. And cried about it. People really write about this stuff? I thought. It felt . . . great. Imagine that you are an alien on your own planet. And imagine you find out that there are more aliens, just like you, on your planet. And imagine what it would be like–to know that someone knows what it’s like. What you’re going through.

…I decided to start my exploration of this new LGBT YA world with the book he mentions by Martin Wilson.

I’m about 80 or so pages into it.

Damn it.

Goddamn it.

I simply love this book. Wilson captures everything about finding that first love perfectly. And I’ve started to tear up several times already from the sheer and utter sweetness of following Alex and his growing friendship with Nathen.

This book is utterly amazing. Read it. Yes, that means you.

^..^

UPDATE: I’m now about 170 pages into What They Always Tell Us. For one thing, I’ve read plenty of “grown-up” novels that don’t have characters quite as vivid and real as Martin Wilson has created here. Second, the events of the story itself, what Alex goes through especially in his relationship with Nathen, so deeply affect me that I sometimes have to stop reading. I’m almost afraid to continue, as if I’m thinking, “This novel cannot keep up the same level of quality, can it?” It does. And finally, why wasn’t this book around when I was sixteen? This one is special, and utterly priceless.