The Straight Road to Kylie

May 21, 2007
Even when Jonathan is making colossally bad decisions-a none-too-infrequent occurrence-it is easy to like the Kylie Minogue-obsessed, gay high school student who is at the center of Medina's debut novel. In the fun, if somewhat contrived, premise, a rich, popular classmate makes Jonathan an offer he cannot refuse: "All I had to do was pretend to be Laura Schulberg's boyfriend, and I'd get to see Kylie Minogue-the queen of pop, the Australian Madonna, one of the loves of my life-in London!" But the return to the closet grows complicated: Jonathan fights with his friends (one of whom drunkenly asks him to have sex with her), meets a potential first boyfriend and suspects Laura may actually be in love with him. Medina paints a vivid picture of Jonathan and his suburban world, which includes house parties, a mundane job at Target and dancing to Kylie while driving around in his dilapidated Volvo-the more ordinary aspects of his Orlando life make it somewhat easy to understand why he'd go along with this artifice. There are great moments, such as Jonathan's description of his first trip to a gay club ("It was surreal, dancing there in a sea of shaking bodies, surrounded by hundreds of other gay men, who maybe at some point in their life felt just like I did."), but in the end, like a lot of pop music, there is more style than substance. Ages 14-up.

July 1, 2007
Gr 9 Up-Jonathan Parish, 17, is "out-and-proud." He spends his time gossiping, shopping, partying, and watching "Golden Girls" reruns with his best girlfriends. Then he drunkenly deflowers a young woman at a party. His crisis of conscience worsens when rich, gorgeous Laura Schulberg makes him an offer he can't refuse: pretend to be her boyfriend in exchange for a trip to London to see Kylie Minogue perform. In the process, he alienates two of his best friends and loathes himself for returning to the closet. Jonathan is fabulously self-aware, and his running commentary about his emotional state, dance music, fashion, and Target shoppers is canny and hilarious. His voice is campy without descending into stereotype, and his honesty and insecurities deepen this portrait. His energetic narration carries the plot briskly along, and the mood is giddy but thoughtful. The characters' cultural references are so timely and their language so believably littered with f-bombs that the author might be in high school himself. Medina's ear for dialogue, colloquialisms, and accents is flawless, and the sharpest interchanges involve Jonathan; his mouthy, bisexual black/Asian girlfriend; and his gay Latino coworker. Unfortunately, his two straight female friends fall a little flat, as if they're only present to set up conflict. The inciting incidentLauren wants Jonathan and only Jonathan as her beardseems forced, too, even as her motive is ultimately revealed. On the whole, though, this is a well-written, thought-provoking, and welcome twist on the coming-out story."Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 18, 2007
Even when Jonathan is making colossally bad decisions-a none-too-infrequent occurrence-it is easy to like the Kylie Minogue-obsessed, gay high school student who is at the center of Medina's debut novel. In the fun, if somewhat contrived, premise, a rich, popular classmate makes Jonathan an offer he cannot refuse: "All I had to do was pretend to be Laura Schulberg's boyfriend, and I'd get to see Kylie Minogue-the queen of pop, the Australian Madonna, one of the loves of my life-in London!" But the return to the closet grows complicated: Jonathan fights with his friends (one of whom drunkenly asks him to have sex with her), meets a potential first boyfriend and suspects Laura may actually be in love with him. Medina paints a vivid picture of Jonathan and his suburban world, which includes house parties, a mundane job at Target and dancing to Kylie while driving around in his dilapidated Volvo-the more ordinary aspects of his Orlando life make it somewhat easy to understand why he'd go along with this artifice. There are great moments, such as Jonathan's description of his first trip to a gay club ("It was surreal, dancing there in a sea of shaking bodies, surrounded by hundreds of other gay men, who maybe at some point in their life felt just like I did."), but in the end, like a lot of pop music, there is more style than substance. Ages 14-up.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.