Geography Club
by Brent Hartinger
5 faerie points
Growing up in a small community as a gay male there were often times I had wished that there was literature that would have helped me to see that I wasn't alone. Now as I get a bit older I see that they are actually publishing such novels that showcase that there are gay people in high school. This makes my heart very happy since there is a growing epidemic of LGBT suicides in our country due to bullying. These books can help these children to feel that they are not along in their journey. It can give them great power within themselves, even when they are unable to tell anyone else.
This book is about a group of kids at a high school that form a "geography club" which is actually an undercover gay-straight alliance. They think because it is a geography club that no one will want to join up. I mean come on if you remember high school geography was sooooooo not cool. Well that is what they are banking on. The book is believable in the fact that characters run the gamut of popularity and incidences within. Hartinger appears to have been trying to give an accurate portrayal of the high school experience and in my opinion he does a rather good job. He has characters that act out of character with a bit of popularity (what kid with even a hint of unpopularity didn't act weird when someone popular suddenly talked to them or they were put in a situation where they were not treated like crap by them?) Hartinger pays proper respect to those boundaries of the high school experience where you are who you sit with.
If you are uncomfortable reading most LGBT fiction because most of it contains graphic sex then this would be the book for you. There is a few mentions of kissing, but for the most part this is just a nice book about friends, the high school experience, and love. It shows what is possible when someone in the LGBT community thinks outside of the stereotypical book of what this community will purchase. There is a power in providing something to a wider audience because it shows that there are multiple types in this one community, but so much of the literature for LGBT has to have some guy standing in his boxer briefs on the cover. You will have a couple of scenes of boxer briefs, but it is only in the appropriate places in this book which is contained with the pages and in the locker room where it should be expected. I recommend taking the time to read this book and sharing it with others that want to understand that not everyone in the LGBT Community fits into a box or a stereotype.
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