Eleven year-old Andy is a precocious boy who enters sixthh grade with ideas of being one of the popular kids. Abandoning his friendship with the obviously gay James, Andy begins to court the attentions of the star football player Mark and his crowd. Not counting his days of playing "Doctors" with James, Andy is determined that this will be the year he finally kisses a boy.

It's easy to forget that all too brief time in our lives between wanting to be play with toys to be wanting to play with boys, but Babcocks charmingly disarming novella manages to bring it flooding back. Andy's internal struggle, the inability to understand his own feelings for heart throb Mark and why he doesn't have those same feelings for Marks girlfriend are extremely relateable. Babcock's writing is wonderfully simplistic, keeping it on the same level as Andy's thought processes will make this book an excellent read for young gays who find themselves in our leads situation.

Andys' relationship with James throughout this book is something keenly insightful. Perhaps just two sides of the same character. While James is portrayed as overly emotional (something Andy hates him for) Andy keeps his in check, focusing all his pent up feeling into writing a fairy tale of a girl abandoned in the forrest with only talking animals for friends and dreams of a handsome prince. James is known as the "school faggot" and Andy teases him in front of the other boys while still calling him at night and inviting him for 'sleepovers.' James is the part of Andy that he, himself must learn to accept and only by accepting his friend as he is can Andy move forward.

This charming, wry, coming of age story is unlike most others because that's exactly what it's not. There's no huge life affirming discovery here, just a quick snapshot of who we were even if it's only who we were for the briefest of times.

13 year-old Robin Mckenzie knows that the monthly trips to New York City he and he his mother Dorothy take mark him out as different. Together they visit ithe cities Art Galleries and parks and cast their eyes over her old haunts as she regails him with conflicting stories of her life as a single high flyer in the time before she married his father.

Robin also knows that fantasising over his seventeen year-old neighbour Todd Spicer marks him out as different, as does his attraction to freshman stoner Scott Schatz.

As he stumbles through his first year of high school he questions his feelings for these boys, his best friend Victoria (Todd's younger sister) and even the relationships he has with his over-protective mother and distant father. But it's not until a tragedy hits the family that the dots start to connect and he realises that he may never belong to that elusive world of normal boys.

K.M. Soehnleins debut novel (published in 2001) is a tender coming of age story that is highly reminiscent of Ron Moody's "The Ice Storm" and not just that both are seventies set character pieces, both pulling focus on the slow disintegration of the suburban family unit. Both also contain a lilting and dreamy quality that while far from the social and political turmoil of the seventies, it's undercurrents bubble away, ever present in the back ground.

Reading through this novel is bound bring up some long buried high school memories for most gay readers. It's depiction of Robin's sexual awakening is sensitive but vivid, his mind a mess of feelings and moral dilemmas that are immediately identifiable. The compelling narrative has been given so much thought and detail that it's hard not see this as autobiographical for the reader.

A great Summer novel, compelling and beautiful and a great cathartic read.

The World of Normal Boys at Amazon