Wissenswertes

Rechtmäßiger Name: Halpin, Brendan
Andere Namen: Cooper, Seamus
Dolan, Frank
Geschlecht: male

Mitglieder

Rezensionen

Tessa Masterson will go to prom von Emily Franklin

EDIT: Apparently the authors are straight. SUDDENLY, MUCH BECOMES CLEAR. I'm going to add some comments to my original review.

Argh. Okay.

Actually, aaaarrrrrghhhhh is more accurate.

I didn't realize the story was ripped from the headlines, and it feels vaguely exploitative.

This story is entirely ripped from the headlines and it's very exploitative. As other reviewers have pointed out, they take Constance McMillen's life and turn it into a life lesson for a fictional entitled straight male baseball star.

I like Tessa. I like Tessa a lot. She's definitely a baby butch, but it's subtext in the story, not text. Without consciously thinking about it, she decides she's going to wear a tux to the prom. But she'll still wear heels and a purse, that makes it just for fun, right? Definitely not because femininity doesn't feel right. Nope.

This hurts the worst. It's not the author(s) subtly addressing what it's like to be a gender variant teenage girl, it's just them being utterly ignorant about what it's like to be a gender variant teenage girl. They wanted the story about Tessa's tux, but they didn't want to have to sympathetically write an (icky, ugly, mannish) butch lesbian---who would want to read about someone like that?

Memo for straight people: The girls who dress up their tuxes like Vogue models with strappy heels and a cute rhinestone clutch are not the ones whose photos get banned from the yearbook.

I don't agree with the book's thesis about grand gestures being vitally important. This might be a personal hangup, but if you wanted me to forgive you for blabbing about something I'd told you in confidence in the most hurtful way possible, the way to go about it would not be to use the same "tell the world" approach to pressure me into forgiving you.

I did like that love didn't have to be a grand gesture, or last forever, to be important and to change your life. And that friendship is a kind of love.

So... it's a YA novel, in other words, and it fails to avoid the usual pitfalls of YA novels.

Straight people need to be stopped.… (mehr)

Gekennzeichnet

caedocyon | 9 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 23, 2024 |

Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom von Emily Franklin

I have so much to say about this book, so let’s go.

The book is told through a split first person POV, alternating between Lucas and Tessa, both of who are our main characters. They’ve been best friends since they were little, and they work in Tessa’s parents’ store together. Lucas is a baseball star, Tessa is one of the town’s sweethearts, and everyone assumes they’re gonna get together eventually. Including Lucas.

So he plans a big gesture asking her to prom, and she refuses, coz she’s gay, and he had no idea.

So far so good, I guess, but literally a few chapters into the book and we already have a problem here.

Lucas, rather than being a good human being who actually understands his best friend’s predicament, calls her selfish and gets angry at her, and literally outs her to the entire town because she refuses to go to prom with him coz she’s gay. Her parents’ store is boycotted because they live in a very conservative town, and Tessa is warned by the school board that if she intends on taking a girl with her to prom, she would not be allowed entry, even though she’s a senior and is leaving the next year. Literally, Lucas brings some of the worst moments of her life on his supposed ‘best friend’.

However, Lucas’s mother manages to talk him into actually trying to fix things, which he does. With some help, he manages to organize a Big Gay Prom in an abandoned warehouse, and it goes super well. Tessa forgives Lucas, and the story ends with them discussing college plans and their life after they graduate high school.

Sweet, right?

Yeah, maybe a bit unrealistic too.

In what universe, pray tell, would someone who is part of the LGBT community, ever forgive someone who outed them? When? I don’t care how big the gesture for forgiveness is: you never out someone, and that someone will probably never forgive you in return. Outing someone before they’re ready, and in malicious intent, is a big deal and can ruin your life. I know enough people who are part of the LGBT community to tell you that this novel is insanely inaccurate in the portrayal of Lucas and Tessa’s friendship after he outs her. Trust the narrative to be in favour of the straight man who comes in and saves the day.

It reminds me a bit too much of what happened to Santana on Glee after she was outed by Finn and had to deal with the repercussions, and then STILL forgave him for what he did. Total bullshit.

Final rating: 2/5. This book is essentially a what happens when you let straight people write queer fiction. It ain’t really worth it. Don’t bother unless you have nothing else to read.… (mehr)

Gekennzeichnet

viiemzee | 9 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 20, 2023 |

Long Way Back: A Novel von Brendan Halpin

Clare Kelly is the narrator of this novel about family, faith, and what it means to lose someone you love. Clare and her brother Francis are children of hippie activists; Clare reacts by attempting to become a punk rock rebel, but goes on to become a nurse, while Francis latches onto the Catholic faith, eventually going on to work with youth — and he does it well. The narrative begins in their childhood, and jumps and skips around until Clare is married with children, and Francis meets and marries a doctor named Lourdes (the summary is intentionally vague because of spoilers).

The characters in this novel wrestle with the idea of faith in the face of tragedy and heartbreak, and are sometimes brutally honest about their idea of God. To one character, music becomes a way to counter and come to grips with grief, and the hole that is left in a life when a beloved one dies.

There are several plot twists in this novel, which make it difficult to write about without spoiling any of them. It is an engaging and fast-paced read which explores ideas of faith and the power of music.… (mehr)

Gekennzeichnet

resoundingjoy | 1 weitere Rezension | Jan 1, 2021 |