A Boy's Own Story, by Edmund White

Told out of chronological order, A Boy's Own Story follows an unnamed young narrator as he comes to grips with the nature of his homosexuality and his desires. Growing up in an inattentive family, he resorts to his fanciful imagination and obsesses over sex and power. He desperately wants an older lover to whisk him away and be under his command. He lusts over his father, his teachers, his peers.

I don't know what else to say in a summary of this book. The narrator is obsessive. He is lustful. He is arrogant. He craves power and the climax of the novel is him using and betraying a teacher because he feels used and betrayed by others, although I hesitate to say 'climax' because the act is pretty bland and predictable, plus there is absolutely no building of plot or conflict.

I did not like this book. I don't understand why this book is placed on such a high pedestal. Reading this, knowing it was semi-autobiographical, just disturbed me. I don't know if it's because I'm asexual or sex-repulsed or what but the narrator's constant desire for sex and constant sexual objectification of the people around me made me feel ill. All I could think of when reading this book was that this boy desperately needed to see a psychologist to help him out.

I didn't even like the writing, which has been praised endlessly for its poetic but frank style.

The only aspect of this novel that I found interesting is that the boy desires only men, and is aware of this desire, but doesn't want to be a homosexual. He hated the label "homosexual," but was perfectly fine discussing (even with others in the novel, as opposed to internal musings) how his sexual desire and obsession concerned only men.

And yes this review is curt because the narrator really made me uncomfortable and I got absolutely nothing else from this book.

Some over reviews you might like:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/10/edmund-white-a-boys-own-story-rereading-gay-literature
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/14/reviews/1355.html
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21598626-american-memoirist-recalls-lost-love-boys-own-story

Next week (week 6, I believe? someone correct me if I'm wrong. I have no sense of time and Australia isn't helping) I will be reading and reviewing Call Me by Your Name by Andre Aciman. Call Me by Your Name, winner of the 2007 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction, is the story of a sudden and powerful romance between a 17 year old boy and a summer guest at his parents' mansion on the Italian Riviera. Andre Aciman is currently a distinguished professor at the Graduate Center of City University of New York. He teaches the history of literary theory and the works of Marcel Proust. He is also well-known for his 1995 memoir Out of Egypt, which also won a Whiting Award.