This is yet another Amazon-recommended book that I found locally. I do hate when a computer-generated program is able to accurately match my tastes with books. I feel so… predictable. I hate being predictable – it’s why I stopped reading true crime: I fit the profile of the average reader. And I was getting a little tired of the sordid, voyeurism of it. And it was almost twenty years ago, so I can probably move on now.
Russel Middlebrook’s sixteen. He occupies the middle ground between popular and outcast, and every day he feels like an intruder trying to escape detection by the enemy. If his classmates, particularly the guys in third period PE (and especially gorgeous, untouchable football star Kevin Land) find out he’s gay then life as he knows it will end. He hasn’t even told his best friends, co-Nerdy intellectuals Gunnar (desperately seeing a girlfriend) and Min (stereotypically Chinese and smart, but owns more than two shirts and wears makeup, so she has escaped the wasteland of rank outsiderdom).
Russel’s only outlet is the internet, where he can talk safely with other gay guys. Then one day, when scrolling through his favourite site, he finds a new addition – chat rooms listed geographically, and his hometown is on the list. Clutching his courage, Russel enters, and finds another member, the creatively named GayTeen. GayTeen is also male, sixteen, and goes to Goodkind High – Russel’s not the only gay guy at his school! Neither young man is prepared to disclose his identity online, but they agree to meet on the school grounds. Russel suspects that GayTeen is the school outsider, Brian Bund – picked on mercilessly, it makes sense that he’s the other gay guy. But Russel is stunned, and delighted, to discover that GayTeen is the previously unattainable Kevin.
Russel has to tell someone, but who? After much debate, and with a great deal of trepidation, he tells Min that Kevin’s gay and, when she asks, tells her he met Kevin in a gay chat room. Min starts laughing, much to Russel’s ire, which is when Min tells him that she’s been seeing soccer star Therese Buckman for two years. The four of them meet up in an out of the way pizza joint, and for the first time in their lives feel comfortable expressing who they are. But getting together regularly will excite suspicion, until one of them comes up with the idea of creating the Geography Club – a group so boring nobody else will want to join. Picking the most apathetic faulty member as adviser, they are free to catch up and debrief.
Though ultimately positive, Geography Club is a depressing insight into how little life has changed for gay teens since I was at school. It is also a story of difficult moral choices, of doing what is right even at the price of significant personal consequence. Though I didn’t make the connection while reading Geography Club, as I write this I’m struck by parallels with Chris Crutcher’s work. Geography Club is less intricate and rich, but it is provocative, insightful, depressing, uplifting and a worthy addition to the arena. - Alex
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