Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan

This book means so much to me. You wouldn't understand.
It isn't really the content of it more than the bits of my life that link to it.

I'm not sure what year it was. I suppose I was in year 8, aged 13, (after note actually I must have been 14 because I had a mobile) we were at Salt's Mill with the family. They have an amazing bookshop there and each time we go I always spend ages looking at every book on the shelves because it's a different sort of system to somewhere like WHSmiths or Waterstones that have more "best sellers". Well, the 'rents always go to look at the design shop bit at the other side of the restaurant and I was drawn to this book. It was the hearts on the front and I read the blurb and was intrigued.
By the time I was found, sat on a chair at the edge of the shop, I was half way through and addicted.
I begged Mum to buy it and finished it in the car on the way back to Grandad's.

I fell in love with every character. The writing was fantastic. I felt connected to this ridiculously idealistic world where Levithan tries to make a complex and simplistic world all at once.

Possibly 2 years after this I lent this book to David, I thought he'd enjoy it, not just because he's gay but because it was a great shortish book that just made me feel good when I read it.
I only ever saw David at cadets and not long after I lent him the book he had a fall out with his Dad and moved further south to live with his Mum.
I never saw that copy of the book again but I never forgot it.

I kept thinking I'd lend it to Ross all through the last few years, this time because, yeah he's gay and two because he rarely reads and I wanted to share a beautiful book with him.

Last weekend Hazel went to a fayre thing and one of the stalls had this book for, I think, 10p.
Whatever it was as soon as she gave it to me when I got home I felt so happy. Haze knew how much it would mean to me to have one of my favourite books back. Making it even more personal and amazing.

To the actual text itself.
Reading it this morning was a completely surreal experience; both the same and different to the first time.
Back then I couldn't put it down, I read and absorbed and loved it. Same this time, but now I see that it's simplistic but greatly metaphorical.
This guy adores to manipulate language with short, sharp ideas and sentences, the way I sometimes write and more like thinking. A gradual personality is shown and I adore it.

With some books authors seem to only want to tell the story, not really bothering to craft. Now, despite loving Horowitz he is a key player of this style, it doesn't ruin them, no, I still really enjoy them but for a completely different reason.
Similarly over explanation of surroundings or details is horrible, it's one of the things that really really annoyed me about the Twilight saga. Meyer is just so faffy and keeps describing things to a crazy unreasonable degree. For her it isn't all beautiful metaphors either.

Levithan gets the balance perfect I think.

I know it isn't strictly allowed to give 6/5 so I'll give it a 5/5 and a BONUS mark for becoming a book that is so much a part of me.

I also realise this is the most in-depth review I've given so far and it was great to do so, this is what I planned to do when I set up this blog but I've not really got around to it yet.

:)