Honestly Ben

In the aftermath of his best friend Rafe coming out (Openly Straight, rev. 5/13), Ben grapples with his own identity as "gay-for-Rafe"-straight, but still head-over-heels for his friend. Through this lens, the challenges of being openly yourself when you can't yet put a label on who you are come to light; as a gender-fluid classmate puts it, it's like "putting it on a platter and saying, 'Here's my confusion. Feel free to pick it apart.'" Konigsberg sets the story in the second semester of Ben's junior year at his prestigious Massachusetts boarding school, and fills it with an affecting balance of interpersonal drama and boarding school hijinks as the teen's relationships with friends, teammates, and family deepen and evolve. Ben himself is complex and sympathetic (if not always likable in his treatment of his romantic interests), and his ruminations on privilege, misogyny, and labels are thought-provoking. The novel's themes are further developed through plot lines involving family tensions (Ben's demanding father is openly homophobic), academic and economic pressures (Ben struggles to keep his school scholarship), and his attempts to be more of an extrovert and a leader, including taking an unpopular stand against hazing and "locker room" sexism on the baseball team. A multidimensional coming-of-age tale that celebrates individuality and interconnection. claire e. gross