From Book Obsession (http://bookobsessiongpl.blogspot.com/2013/06/kearstens-book-club-may-and-june-stiff.html):

In this historical fiction book set in 1994 (calling a book set during my high school years "historical" breaks my heart, btw), Danny spends the summer before his senior year trying to hide from something he's slowly beginning to realize: he might be gay. Okay, he's pretty sure he is gay, but he can change that, right?

Danny lives in a small town in Canada, and a lot of our conversation was about what that might be like. Our discussion leader mentioned that one of the complaints he'd found in online reviews of the book was that 'coming out' books like this one always seem to have this setting, which led to a ton of questions like: is it tougher to be "different" in a small town? Why might that be? And would we survive in a small town like Danny's? A couple of our teen book clubbers have lived in small towns themselves and shared their own experiences, along with the strangeness of everyone knowing your name (and parents, and grades, and exploits...)

Side note: Alma, Danny's little sister was amazing. One teen mentioned that she was being added to his fictional family, which makes total sense to me! Someday, I need to compile a list of awesome siblings in books... ( )

An interesting addition to my collection of books set on or around Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. Definitely not for the same audience as some of my other books, however.

Dan is struggling with a lot in his life. He really doesn't know what he wants to do, and his father is always nagging him to figure that out before high school is over, and his two best friends, Kierce and Jay, are more interested in getting him laid than listening. Not that Dan intends to tell them anything about the fact that he thinks he's more into guys than the girls they throw at him. Maybe people in a big city can be gay, but no one in his little coastal town is, that's for sure. After a minor run-in with the police after a party, it's decided that Dan needs to get a job. His mom points him toward an old classmate, who is renovating an the Burger Shack into a real restaurant. There he meets a girl who is different and cosmopolitan, and begins to see what he'd like to do with his life when he's promoted from dishwasher to sous chef.

Though I was afraid at the beginning that this would turn into a one-trick problem novel, I was gratified to find that I became quite fond of Dan and enjoyed the journey to find out who he really is. The supporting characters, like his classic cinemaphile little sister and JP, the chef he's working under, fully realized characters who added a lot of flavor. I loved all the details about starting and opening a restaurant. I was also happy that the parents were supportive and Dan's family was a positive force in his life, without being too good to be true. The book was humorous and real. ( )

I wasn't entirely sure this was a gay book when I indicated my interest in reading Way to Go, but I wasn't surprised based on the summary I had been given. As a gay man, I found this book to be a nice, normal look into the teenage years of a guy who is reaching the point in his life where he really has to start dealing with the feelings he has and the people around him who are starting to notice that something is different about him. I thought the story was very raw and honest. It felt like someone had taken a leaf from their own journal, changed the names and locations, and made it into a novel. I'm not citing this as a bad thing. I actually like how realistic the story was; however, I feel like the tempo of the story was a bit choppy. I'm a little older than the age demographic for this novel, and I take that into consideration when judging this book. And just because I am older by a few years doesn't mean that there wasn't something in this story for me. Quite the opposite. I really wish that I had a book like this when I was in high school. Books like Way to Go and the works of Alex Sanchez and others weren't around when I was going through this stuff. I think that this book is a very nice first novel from Tom Ryan, and I look forward to picking up a copy of whatever he has to offer next. Very quick read, and age appropriate. The language in this book is definitely not for young teens. ( )

I am a high school librarian. I spend all day with teenagers, and I read a LOT of YA literature. Unfortunately, this book falls very short of the mark.

It's doomed from the start by a cliched story - teenage boy thinks he might be gay, but he lives in a small homophobic town with a couple of meathead homophobic friends and so he has a lot of trouble accepting himself for who he is. Some new people come into his life over the summer, including an older, wizened lesbian (clearly marked to be his new role model) and by the end of the summer everything is hunky-dory.

Here's the problem: this story has been written a lot, and it's been written a lot better. This book takes place over the summer of 1994, which makes little sense to me - even the mixtape on the cover is a dead giveaway to today's teenagers that this book is "old." (Most teenagers today do not even know what a cassette tape is!) The dialogue is the absolute cheesiest stuff I have ever heard, full of 1994 slang and clearly written the way adults think that teenagers talk, but not in the way that teenagers actually talk to one another. The characters are pretty one-dimensional and the problems are solved too easily, with everything tied up in a neat and tidy bow by the end of the book.

This book might serve as some decent nostalgia for a 20-something reader looking for some light fluff. But for the YA audience this book is intended for? I don't know any teenager today who would bother reading it. If you're looking for some good YA literature dealing with issues about coming to terms with being gay, try Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. ( )