When everything feels like the movies

I heard about this book because it was on Canada Reads, although being out of country I didn't manage to actually catch the episodes talking about it when they were broadcast so I still went in mostly not knowing what I was in for. The idea of coping with high school by imagining it as a movie set intrigued me.

I'm finding myself at a loss as to what to say about this book. It's authentic in that way that people don't always like to see high school depicted, with swearing and sex and violence and feelings with raw edges. For all that intensity, it's as playful as it is painful, as well as insightful and hard to put down. It takes "gay (trans?) kid not fitting in to small town" and pushes it out to an extreme that YA isn't often allowed show more to go. I loved it and was horrified by it at once, and I guess that's the point. I kind of hope it actually does get made into a movie. show less

**Review is posted on the ALA-GLBTRT's Reviews website**

High school is not easy. Some kids fit right in, others are outcasts. For Jude, he’s a gay teen who doesn’t fit in the typical high school hierarchy. As he lovingly puts it, he’s “the flamer that lights the set on fire.” Inspired by the 2008 hate crime of Larry Fobes King, Reid creates the fictional world of Jude Rothesay within a small mining podunk. Despite what others think, he does what he wants and doesn’t feel the need to apologize for it. He’s horny, celeb-crazed, and quick-witted; but he’s also vulnerable, gut-wrenchingly honest, and fearless -- which ultimately leads to the book’s poignant ending.

With ALA’s Banned Books Week coming to an end, this is show more perhaps one of the better challenged books I’ve read. The work itself is relatively short - coming in under two hundred pages. But do not let the length fool you - the witty dialogue, tender moments, and harsh teen betrayals will entice teens and adults alike. Reid displays his genius by having Jude compare the high school experience to Hollywood’s underbelly. The reader gets sucked into the melodrama that is Jude’s high school. Stereotypes abound -- jocks, posers, and more. But Jude doesn’t try to be someone else; he bravely puts on his lip gloss, grows out his hair, and puts one heel in front of the other.

The book was recently challenged with a petition because of the “graphic nature” of the novel; challengers wanted to revoke the book’s Governor General's Award for Children’s Literature (similar to the Printz Award, but for Canada) because it calls into question the standards on which the award is given. While the book is full of obscenities, sexual acts, drug use references, and violence, it portrays Jude’s life in a realistic light. Teens face many of the issues that reside within the book, and I think the book’s relatability is one of the reasons why Jude’s story is so compelling. Jude dreams of being a Hollywood star,, but he instead comes crashing back down to reality and talks about his “stalkers” (bullies) and what the paparazzi (gossips) at school are posting about him on Twitter. It’s both funny and tragic, melodramatic and real.

Besides the questioning of adult content, the story is spectacular. The pacing is spot on and Reid keeps the action going with shorter, explosive chapters. What’s really great about this novel, though, is that it is not just about Jude’s sexuality. While it’s a large plot point, he experiences a lot of other traumatic events that intertwine, including seeing his absent father, living with his mother who works as an exotic dancer, losing his virginity, a betrayal from his best friend, and bullying on a regular basis. While it’s hard to deal with one of the issues, imagine what it must be like to experience all of it at once. Jude handles it as best as he can, but beneath the facade there’s a lot of loneliness peaking out. We catch glimpses of it throughout the novel, and it makes us root for Jude to have a happy Hollywood ending.

I would recommend this novel for young adult collections, LGBTQ+ collections, and post-secondary classes revolving around GLBT literature. (In doing online research, I’ve seen this book being listed on college syllabuses already.) However, because of the explicitness of the novel, be prepared to defend the book. But as most of you know, great books are worth defending and this is no exception. show less

A difficult book to read and an even more difficult book to review. I came to When Everything Feels Like The Movies after hearing about both its award accolades and its detractors for the unflinchingly brutal content. This was a bleak read and for the first 2/3rds of the book I was ready to give this book a bad review - the writing felt shallow, far too immersed in extremes and shocking for shocking's sake. The characters felt utterly unlikable. But then something shifted for me the last 3rd of the book. The relentless attacks on Jude from all sides (his family, his friends and his fellow students) and his own ways of combating this started to make sense and I could really understand his desperation. My own personal reaction to this show more book was mainly - "why are people still writing these kinds of bleak books where queer kids are getting so abused" - the reason is...it still happens. And this is why a brutally honest and raw book like this needs to be published. show less

Original de: El Extraño Gato del Cuento

When Everything Feels Like the Movies no fue lo que creía. Lo terminé de leer hace un par de días y aún estoy un poco movida por lo que pasé con este libro. Utilizo muchas veces en mis reseñas la palabra "inesperado" pero esta vez esa palabra no le hace justicia a When Everything Feels Like the Movies. En el blog tengo varios libros con temas LGBT pero ninguno, en realidad ninguno como este.

Estuve muy tentada de dejar el libro en el primer capítulo, tiene absolutamente todo lo que no soporto en los libros Young Adult que van para lo dark: Drogas, Bullying, Sexo demasiado explícito. Cuando leo Young Adult quiero leer algo bonito, que al final me deja un mensaje o al menos pase un buen rato. show more Es muy raro que busque libros oscuros en Young Adult, trato de leer esos más en New Adult o Adulto.

¿Por qué lo continué? Porque Jude tiene una forma muy particular de narrar y es recién en el segundo capítulo que me entero que Jude es un chico. Sentí que no debía dejar pasar la oportunidad de leer un libro LGBT donde no todo son estrella y unicornios. Sobre todo por un personaje como Jude, un chico que no se define tanto por el rol de género, no estoy segura si puedo denominarlo transexual, porque la verdad es que no sé mucho del tema y me da un poco de miedo haber malinterpretado lo que Jude es. Pero si tuviera que definirlo en una categoría, sería esa lo primero que se me viene a la mente para identificar a Jude.

Lo que hizo que me quedará leyendo el libro, aunque por momentos tenía que dejarlo ya que varias veces no me sentía cómoda con lo que leía, todo el libro es un escenario completamente nuevo para mí, es la narración. Está escrito en pasado, ya sé que la mayoría de los libros están escritos en pasado pero este en especial te indica que algo pasará o pasó para que la narración sea de esa manera. Hay frases como "Y con eso debí haber sospechado..." o "Recuerdo que le dije...". Es bastante inquietante, teniendo en cuenta la vida de los personajes. Llega un punto en que la misma narración te hace creer que terminará de una manera más común, más normal, más feliz pero no y es bastante chocante.

When Everything Feels Like the Movies no es un libro para todo el mundo y si alguna vez lo recomiendo tendría que ser a alguien que específicamente esté buscando un libro como éste.

Entre la más cruda realidad, la fantasía y la locura; When Everything Feels Like the Movies es un libro que si logras terminar de leer, lo odiarás o amarás, pero no lo vas a olvidar así lo intentes.

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Not sure where to begin. This is a very provocative book. The author (and the defender of the book on Canada Reads) clearly communicated what I feel is the superficial message of the book: the intolerance of boys who are a) gay and b) like to wear makeup and high heels. I feel this does the book a disservice. The larger message about the failure of society to care for the welfare of the wider group of children living in poverty, with drug addicted, violent, absent parents is overshadowed by the graphic language used by the writer.

It is this very explicit and overly dramatic language that can be very off-putting. It will prevent most people from either picking up the book, or persisting through it past the first half dozen pages. It was show more the winner of the Governor General's Award for Children's Literature, and I would suggest that 16 year-old teens do need to read it - followed by much discussion and guided analysis in the classroom.

Had this not been a Canada Reads finalist, I would have stopped reading after 50 pages (my default stop point for books that do not engage me). I would also have missed the best part of the book: the last 50 pages. show less

the realization that this was based on a true story was absolutely heartbreaking. jude had a very good and strong voice. this is a short book to read, and a quick one, but it is not an easy one. it deals with drugs, sex, self-harm, depression, suicide, bullying - you name it, it's probably there. and these are middle school kids. maybe i'm super naive or something, but these kids are around the same age as my 13-year-old sister and i cannot imagine having to deal with this sort of shit.

it's written in a very fantastical and sometimes poetic way, so sometimes you can't tell if he's describing something that's real or not. the foreshadowing didn't catch me until i realized what was happening - then again, i refused to believe it as well. show more jude is a very strong main character; he's relentlessly bullied to the point of suicide and self-harm but he has a very sarcastic and witty voice and he's never cast in the role of the victim, which i suppose is the point of this.

i'm very proud that this won the governor general's award. i think it was very well-deserved. show less

I really wanted to hate this book. I realize that this story leans heavy on the idea that teens are product of the pop culture around them, and sometimes kids reach outside of their own time to take from pop culture of the generation before them, but in both these allowances this book seem unrealistic. I felt a grown ass man talking through a ninth grader (or however old these characters are supposed to be). Set in a town where it seems to be endlessly snowing, which I resented for being set in the US ("singles" being the slang for American dollar bills) when this was written by a Canadian and published by a Canadian publish and is in contention to take Canada Reads this year. The author made a choice to take this story out of Canada show more and possibly did this narrative a disservice.

I most certainly was placing my hopes on this book to be an indication of the new gay culture where LGBT goes in fact include trans* persons. But every few chapters a unwarranted trans*phobic comment is tossed in for good measure. What would be more provocative than including these hatful statements would have been to have a young gay male character written in any form other than a miniature version of a stereotype.

But it's the first book in a long time that I finished in a reasonable amount of time and the first Canada Reads selection I have ever read, so that's saying something. show less