Michael Harmon

It's been a really long time since I've either given up on a book or disliked it so much that I couldn't even hate-read it through to the end.

Ben is the protagonist who's father came home one day and announced he was gay. Mom walked out--which just effed up. Ben, having had his world fall apart, goes full-on delinquent, alcohol, drugs, general terrible behavior. After a while dad forced them into therapy, they have some breakthroughs. Things get a lot better, not perfect, but better. Ben cleans up his act and has even gotten used to his stepdad, whom he calls momdad, even if he doesn't love the situation. He has one slip-up and they decided it's a good idea to move a teenaged city boy to the middle of nowhere Montana.

So we're talking two gay men moving back to one's hometown--the town he moved away from for very good reason, and they bring their son/stepson with them. They move into his childhood home with his mother, who doesn't like that her son his gay, but he's still her son, so there's that.

Bonnie Mae, or Miss Mae, is old school country, respect is demanded, manners are insisted upon, no cussing or sarcasm, beatings and/or starvation as punishment. Yeah great idea for a smart-assed teenager with two dads.

This books is just a mess. Verbal threats, physical abuse, starvation, and forcing Ben to sleep in the woodshed. And this is all from Miss Mae. And dad just sits back and lets this woman do this to his child. Like, what?! I don't care what lame excuse you want to use, "they do things different," "she's from a different time," "we're guests in her home." I'll be damned if I let someone lay a hand on my child. You'd best not even discipline my child, especially if I'm close enough to be called to handle a situation.

Miss Mae is an asshole. Dad is an asshole. Ben is an asshole. The only one who's decent is Edward, who willingly came back to the town that tortured him throughout his childhood, just to help his partner's child stay on the straight and narrow. The neighbor is also an abusive, homophobic asshole, who beats the living daylights out of his son because Ben was talking to him, even after the boy told Ben to leave him alone, even after Ben told the man that he had approached the boy who didn't want to talk to him.

I didn't think I would finish it because I didn't even care if there was character growth or a redemption arc. But I toyed with the idea of slogging through it anyway. And then the little neighbor boy shot a stray cat just because. That's it. Just. Because.

I "noped" out of that book and cannot recommend anyone to read it.… (mehr)

Three years ago, Ben Campbell’s was as normal as could be. Then his dad suddenly announced he was gay. Now Ben has no mother, she walked out the door and never looked back. He’s doing every drug he can get his hands on. Then a year ago Ben cleaned himself up. For almost an entire year he hasn’t gotten into trouble, he’s done well in school, and he’s sort of civil with everyone. But then he goes and gets arrested and that’s that. His dad, and his “Momdad” Edward, take Ben and move him to the middle of nowhere, Rough Butte, Montana, population 400, to live with Edward’s mother Miss Mae.

So now, at the age of 17, Ben finds himself starting over all over again. Now the city boy has to learn to live in the backward country of Montana, where everyone drives huge trucks, wear Wrangler’s and Ropers, and works. Really works. But the hardest part is to come for now he has to deal with the creepy guy next door, big brother’s looking to scare the potential boyfriend away and a grandmother who isn’t afraid to whack him with a spoon at the first opportunity.

"The decoder card to the universe wasn’t included in the box of cereal God gave humanity. At the ripe old age of seventeen, I’d at least figured out that no matter how hard you try to guess what happens next, you can’t. Life wasn’t set up that way and we don’t like it, so we spend most of our time running around like a bunch of dimwits."

The best part of The Last Exit to Nowhere is Ben. Ben’s voice is spot on ‘teenager.’ He’s angry, sarcastic, challenging, very intelligent, honest, brash, stubborn, romantic, awkward, comical, depressed, and funny, and like most teenagers he shifts from one emotion to the next with surprising speed. Ben’s relationship with his dad was the best drawn plot of the book. It felt real and complex. The problems the two had, Ben accepting his father’s homosexuality, his father’s desire for that acceptance, but unwillingness to deal with it himself spoke true to me.

Harmon pulled no punches with this coming-of-age story. It actually left me in tears a couple of times. This story of a misfit boy who is struggling to fix all the lives around him while trying to figure out his own is powerful and a must read. Don’t miss it.
… (mehr)