Skinny Dipping Into Books

To say this is sort of a mess is like saying wearing green with red together should only be sort of avoided on the other 364 days of the year; it’s a freaking obvious.

First persons are tough, and I am tough on first persons. They need to really support some fucking stellar primary and secondary characters, or they just wither and die.

This one, in essence, is a wither and die-er.

It takes place during senior year. Simon, our classic closeted Y/A character fancies Alex. Simon, who assumes this is all unrequited love, evades expressing his affection until one night the two are at an away game. It is all ‘boy scouts camping trip’ scenario stuff.

Alex and Simon fall hard for one another, but, like many of these sports themed gay Y/A books, it must remain quiet. And things are relatively calm at first. They keep things all covert and secret agent, until they confide in Jackson, who is one of their best friends. But this is cool, because of course Jackson is all set on being THAT ally.

While these two youngins fall in love, Simon has to deal with a tumultuous family unit. Simon lives in a neglectful and abusive family unit. This is a freaking understatement. His brother reminds me of Buzz Mccallister. I KID YOU NOT! He is one of the worse, most contrived characters. His dad is portrayed as this flat, emotional, reckless husband and father, and we are hit over and over the head with this so many times it’s unbearable. We get it; he’s a dick. The element of the 1950s submissive housewife just beats this even further into the land of tortured and overwrought novels.

And even though Simon and Alex are careful, their secret gets out. The Buzz Mccallister look-a-like brother is at the center of this mess. The repercussions are big, huge, maasiveeeee, some would say all soap opera like. Others would say, “this was published?”

Eventually the team finds out, and we see the expected results. The news slowly makes it’s way to the rest of the school, and rather than being totally closeted and scared they embrace the coming out; well, almost. Alex’s family is supportive for the most part, and so are a few other families. There is the rising risk of harming their potential college futures, and as time proceeds this chance increases to an almost certainty. There is homophobia, especially from teammates, yet it doesn’t really hit anything realistic. Relationships are changed, but in an unrealistic extreme sort of way.

What proceeds is absolutely ridiculous. Simon’s abusive brother is implicated in an assault and murder and his father engaged in something straight out of S. J. Watson’s cookbook. J.H. Trumble’s beautiful Don’t Let me Go is clearly a source of inspiration, with scenes almost replicated from its pages. We have a dance where men dance with men as some show of comradery and support  (think Out of Pocket YMCA) and there is partner abuse. The way it's written is almost sickeningly familiar. We also see the same sort of ‘wrap up’ interview style ending that faulted Out of Pocket. It is all sorts of irregularity and carbonic paper.

The theme of hockey is handled well, and for those who read the blurb and think this will be heavily submerged with sports references, fear not, it is handled lightly and in a way that contributes to the overall story.

Characters do share individual voices, but that isn’t especially difficult when the majority of the writing is saying rather than showing and when info dropping is adopted as a second skin. The novel is shrapnel for typos, and the lack of dialog tags is dizzying. The weak writing coupled with a poor attempt at character development makes this almost ‘Another Gay Movie’, laughable. Something Like Summer was successful with this because it embraced its campiness, Hat Trick, however, read less as intentional attempt at laughing at itself and more of a lack of focus, which I ended up laughing at.