Book Review : My Side of the Story

Here goes my first book review.

My Side of the Story. Well, what can I say about this novel? It is an amazing read. It draws you in with the first paragraph and tickles your sides with each turn of the page. This light-hearted story focuses on the main character, Jaz, who is a young gay dude who spends most of his time sneaking into gay bars, dealing with his religious sister and ‘whacked-out’ parents, and putting up with bullies at school. Listening to him whine about everything can start to get annoying after a while, but he does it in such a humorous way that you can’t really take anything he says too seriously.

His best friend, Al, who could earn a degree in fag-haggery, has Jaz’s back the whole way through this novel -- even when they have a little falling out. And once Jaz has enough of everything at home, he and Al decide to run away together. While on their short-lived adventure, they get into trouble with the police on more than one occasion, and when Jaz loses his virginity to some hairy dude, he has an epiphany -- while having sex, may I add (I sympathise with him here. I mean, if you’re thinking about life while having sex, then you know it’s time to bail.). And what’s even worse, while he’s being pounded by Big, Hairy Fat Dude, he hallucinates (he’s drugged up) and sees his dead ex-friend (If I were Jaz, I’d be feeling kinda violated by now).

Most of the issues in this novel are sorted out by the end, but, of course, since it’s supposed to be realistic, not everything is tied into a neat little bundle.

I’d give this one 3/5