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The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Nick Burd

3.93 · Rating details · 10,519 ratings · 636 reviews

It's Dade's last summer at home, and things are pretty hopeless. He has a crappy job, a "boyfriend" who treats him like dirt, and his parents' marriage is falling apart. So when he meets and falls in love with the mysterious Alex Kincaid, Dade feels like he's finally experiencing true happiness. But when a tragedy shatters the final days of summer, he realizes he must face ...more

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Paperback, 309 pages

Published March 17th 2011 by Speak (first published May 1st 2009)

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May 11, 2011 Cory rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Fans of Twilight

Reading this book was painful.

Our main character, Dade Hamilton, is an idiot. I wanted to pimp slap him every other page. Dade makes Bella Swan look like Mother Teresa.

Just as a side-note, Dade is gay, but that's pretty much irrelevant to the plot. Dade wants you to think that his problems stem from being gay, but actually, he's just an asshole. There are kids who get tormented every single day because of their sexuality. Then we have whiners, like Dade, who are the Jesse Jacksons of the gay r ...more

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Jul 04, 2009 Thomas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, five-stars, romance, lgbtq, realistic-fiction

"The Vast Fields of Ordinary" is about Dade Hamilton, a gay in the closet teenager who is living his senior summer in the worst way possible. He has a horrible job at a grocery store, a "boyfriend" who won't even acknowledge his presence in public, and his parents are at each other's necks in arguments and conflicts. Dade is barely getting by with alcohol and drugs, until he meets Alex, a dreamy and somewhat thrifty young man who might just change Dade's life forever.

I loved this book. Every wor ...more

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Apr 06, 2011 John Egbert rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Drug dealers trying to convert teens, people who think smoking pot is cool, idiots

Recommended to John by: I can blame nobody for this but myself.

Shelves: wtf-dude, why-did-i-read-this, annoyed-after-reading

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was probably the worst LGBT book I have ever read. Here's why;

1. The drugs.

I have no huge problem with topics like drugs and alcohol in YA. But when you practically promote it and make it out like the norm, etc "Oh, and I smoked another joint,". The main character in the novel, Dade, is constantly smoking marijuana. His parents seem okay with it, and his mother even says "I'm okay with it every once in a while,". What? What?

His boyfriend, Alex, is a freakin' drug dealer for chrissakes. It's ...more

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Aug 25, 2011 Wigs rated it it was ok

Shelves: book-clubs-and-buddy-reads, lgbt

First of all I want to say that often my favorite books to read are any fiction books that have queer themes. So I was hoping to be pleased no matter what, and I seem to think of myself as a forgiving person when it comes to books (in fact before this I couldn't really name any book in recent history I'd read besides Twilight that I would consider 'bad') Unfortunately, I quickly began to realize that this book is in fact, awful.

Although some of that is to blame from the back cover. I know that a First of all I want to say that often my favorite books to read are any fiction books that have queer themes. So I was hoping to be pleased no matter what, and I seem to think of myself as a forgiving person when it comes to books (in fact before this I couldn't really name any book in recent history I'd read besides Twilight that I would consider 'bad') Unfortunately, I quickly began to realize that this book is in fact, awful.

Although some of that is to blame from the back cover. I know that authors aren't responsible (right?) for the summary on the back of the book, but this one seemed to describe that something was going to happen. "A tragic event that would change the course of Dade's life." So I was waiting to read about this event. From the back of the book even mentioning, one would think it was going to be the inciting incident, otherwise why spoil, right? And I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited and fucking waited some more and nothing tragic happened until about the last chapter, and it certainly didn't seem to change the course of the narrator's life much in any way. The worst part was that while I was waiting and waiting for something INTERESTING to actually happen, I kept imagining how it was going to happen, like "oh here it comes, this is it, something horrible is going to happen right about now...." and no, nothing happened. The plethora of events that I imagined were possibly going to happen were much more interesting than what even does happen, which is, may I repeat myself again, pretty much nothing by the time we get there anyway.

This book goes absolutely nowhere.

Underneath all the nothing that happens to the main character, a continuous mention of a missing girl is brought up. There is meant to be some 'deep' symbolism, in context of the main character, the little girl getting lost at the beginning of the summer and magically found (with no explanation of what even happened to her) at the end, and I can't for the life of me ever figure out why the main character even cared for a second beyond a superficial level about it. I certainly didn't care about her, because the narrator didn't make me care.

The main character/narrator Dade I didn't find likeable at all. At first I thought I would, but then I realized he had no interests aside from poetry and bands with really cliche names. He seems to have no will of his own and lets his friends convince him how to act and what's cool, including participating in the very cult-like and disturbing head-shaving party which is about the time I decided I wanted to be done with this book (however I continued til the end, I'm not one to leave a book once I've gotten most of the way through.) We read pages and pages of him sitting out by the pool and moping about in his room and going to backyard parties and each event seems to be even more mundane then the other. Then when it comes to the boys he's paired up with, the parts of the book that could actually be interesting, the sex is skipped over and barely even mentioned, using about a sentence to describe that anything even happened. Worst of all, at the end of the book, the narrator tells us that he is writing a book and it is called the Vast Fields of Ordinary like it's going to be some amazing life story. So the book is in fact self-aware, and yet it has no idea what a terribly uninteresting, vast field of boring it was.

I guess I should have known by the title that nothing was going to happen. But still.

The writing itself was terribly weak as well. Not only were there a few spelling and grammar errors (though I suppose that's the editor's fault for not catching them before publication, and dammit, this is the second edition of the book, you'd think they'd catch the errors by now), but the author writes like a 14 year old writing fanfiction. Anytime a character is introduced we are treated to a ridiculous amount of sentences that interrupt the story in order to give us a description of what they looks like. For example, when the main character is at a diner and a waitress comes us, he immediately tells us "she was wearing sparkly barrettes and [blah blah]..." when there is certainly a better way, if you must tell us this detail, to weave it into the story better. As they say in film, 'show, don't tell.' So at least make a description part of your action, like perhaps he notes the waitress tucks the pen in her hair behind her sparkly barrette or something, instead of giving us very middle-school simple sentences to talk about what someone is wearing. There were several other instances of that, however it was when I came to the part about this waitress when I realized 'wow, this writing is awfully weak.' This book also suffered a bit from the Juno-syndrome, where the author was writing how he thought teens talked to one another and it seems painfully forced and dumbed down.

I think I've covered enough what went wrong here. Basically weak writing centered around almost zero plot. Just descriptions of someone's boring summer. I have never read a book packed with that much nothing, except perhaps Twilight, which unfortunately, I read right before this one.

There is plenty of good queer fiction out there. This is not one of them. ...more

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Feb 28, 2012 Nick Bicknell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I think this book gets a bad rap for a variety of reasons, the chief reason being that it isn't afraid to deal with drugs and not paint them in a negative light. Of course when I refer to drugs, I'm referring to marijuana and alcohol, you know, the two things that most teenagers manage to get their fingers into at one point or another, and most of us, honestly, grow up just fine. It's no surprise that the most popular negative reviews on this site harp on the fact that there are drugs and that t I think this book gets a bad rap for a variety of reasons, the chief reason being that it isn't afraid to deal with drugs and not paint them in a negative light. Of course when I refer to drugs, I'm referring to marijuana and alcohol, you know, the two things that most teenagers manage to get their fingers into at one point or another, and most of us, honestly, grow up just fine. It's no surprise that the most popular negative reviews on this site harp on the fact that there are drugs and that the primary love interest of the main character is a drug dealer. I'm not going to comment on this fact much, I'll just give a simple statement: yes, this book involves drugs. No, they're not portrayed in a negative light at all. Yes, I'm fine with this. You know why? I've smoked pot. I've drank. Neither of those things define me, and those things don't define the characters of this book either. People need to get over their hangups. It's ironic to me that these people who complain about this drug-fueled (barely) lifestyle are reading an LBGTQ book that also promotes an alternative lifestyle. I understand there is a big difference between being gay and choosing to get trashed (I'm gay, after all) but this sort of close-mined hypocrisy is just too much for me to handle. Onward to the review!

Dade Hamilton is just your run of the mill boy, who just so happens to be gay, who is spending his last summer at home before he leaves for college. A lot of reviews tear him apart for being weak, or that all of his problems come from him being gay, but nowhere in the book did I find this to be remotely the case. Sure, there were problems that sprung up in his life due to his lifestyle, but they're very real problems. I went through them. Dade is a realistic character, a gay boy who is neither effeminate or manly, he's just himself.

He's sleeping with a sort-of boyfriend who is in the closet and has a girlfriend. Dade is his ass on the side. His name is Pablo, and he was a wonderful character. He's gay, as a reader you never really get the impression that he's bisexual, he's gay. He's in the closet. And as Dade tells him somewhere near the beginning of the novel, he's a coward. I felt for him, and I mean really felt for him. His situation is not an unusual one--torn between two paths, the social norm, and his real self. Everyone knows the guy that everyone knows is gay, but somehow has a girlfriend and refuses to be himself. Pablo is that character.

The book doesn't really follow a set path. There are a number of plotlines that all reach some sort of resolution towards the end of the novel--not all of them happy, not all of them sad, just like life. I thought the book was very fulfilling, it didn't sugarcoat anything that wasn't necessary, and unlike some other readers, I didn't mind that there were characters who acted outside of social norms. I'm not going to pretend that these people don't exist, I'm not going to pretend that all of their lives end in police shoot-outs and tragedy, and I'm certainly not going to give a book a horrible review just because they portrayed characters smoking weed, like others. I like to pride myself on being realistic and not having ridiculous expectations.

So yes, I really liked the book. It was well-written and extremely interesting. It's funny to me that someone in a review compared this to Twilight, and it just really shows the arrogance of our generation when someone has to compare every book they read to Twilight, when they probably don't even really know what makes Twilight bad and just parrot things they've heard off of message boards. This is the farthest thing from Twilight you can get. This is realistic, and the prose is wonderful, not purple like S. Meyers--you're lying to yourself if you're comparing anything about them. ...more

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Jun 02, 2013 Laura rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Welcome to Dade Hamilton’s last summer before heading off to college. A summer of coming out, falling in love, and finding himself. But also a time of confusion, loneliness, tension, and longing. Dade has a lot going on in his ordinary world. His parents are on the verge of divorce, his “boyfriend” won’t acknowledge their relationship, and a local girl goes missing capturing everyone’s attention. Things are not as ordinary as they appear.

This is an “I’m never going to be able to explain what thi ...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Lenore rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, look-ma-i-got-no-balls, ugh-little-to-no-sex, lgbt, ya-na, buddy-read, meh, reviewed-by-yours-truly, rec-by-gr-friend, summer-or-holiday-love

2.5 stars rounded up.

So. The Vast Fields of Ordinary. Indeed. Because there wasn't anything really extraordinary about this book.

Someone should probably rewrite the blurb. I kept expecting "tragedy to shutter the dreamy curtain of summer," but unless you count the last chapter—that textbook example of telling instead of showing—tragedy was resoundingly absent from this book.

I didn't like Dade. He was a boring, unexceptional, detached, and at times even mean rich kid with rich kids' problems. (Ok 2.5 stars rounded up.

So. The Vast Fields of Ordinary. Indeed. Because there wasn't anything really extraordinary about this book.

Someone should probably rewrite the blurb. I kept expecting "tragedy to shutter the dreamy curtain of summer," but unless you count the last chapter—that textbook example of telling instead of showing—tragedy was resoundingly absent from this book.

I didn't like Dade. He was a boring, unexceptional, detached, and at times even mean rich kid with rich kids' problems. (Okay, Pablo wasn't very nice to him in the first 1/3 of the book, I'll give him that, but look what happened to bad Pablo who refused to come out of the closet for Dade's sake. Hm?) He'd just finished school and he was about to go to college and, practically, all he did was doze the summer away sprawled out on a chaise by the pool of his house pretending he cared about his parents' impending divorce. In those pool scenes he kind of reminded me of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate.

Also, Dade should be dubbed the Gladstone Gander of Midwestern suburbia. The moment he needed a BFF, Lucy (who also happened to be a lesbian, how convenient) magically moved to his neighbourhood. The moment he needed a real boyfriend, Alex Kincaid appeared as if out of thin air. Bonus features: he was cool, he was sexy, and he was gay (he was also a drug dealer and a loser, but who cared about that.) The moment he needed time and space to explore his newly minted relationship with Alex, his parents decided to go to Europe for two weeks to try and save their marriage. I know, right? Gladstone Dade.

Then you had that little missing girl. Who I suppose symbolised Dade's life? Yep. I won't go there. It wasn't very well done.

Still, I won't say this book was an entire waste of time. Although the story had a cliché air about it, there were parts where the writing was decent and had me wondering about the author's other work (he hasn't written anything else, unfortunately.)

I'd say, if you approach this without any great expectations, you might even like it. ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, glbt, _audio, _fiction

I became hooked on this book quickly. I liked the 'real' lives of all the characters. All of the characters had enough complexities described to understand the real turmoil that is in all of their lives and minds. It is not overdone. Surely we 'know' these characters around us, or in us.

Dade is graduating from a midwest high school and tells us the story of his senior year and summer. Its a boring town, and Dade has a complex relationship with Pablo, because Pablo has a serious girl friend. Dade I became hooked on this book quickly. I liked the 'real' lives of all the characters. All of the characters had enough complexities described to understand the real turmoil that is in all of their lives and minds. It is not overdone. Surely we 'know' these characters around us, or in us.

Dade is graduating from a midwest high school and tells us the story of his senior year and summer. Its a boring town, and Dade has a complex relationship with Pablo, because Pablo has a serious girl friend. Dade understands himself as gay, but slowly comes out to more and more people as the story unfolds. As Dade gets away from being used by Pablo, and finds love with Alex from across town, I became very invested in this story. Dade knows he is going to college up in Michigan, and Alex is a couple years older and a bit stuck at his Taco Taco job and living with his grandmother (parents are gone).

Dade's Dad is fooling around, and his Mom is wishing they had never moved into their currently big nice house. A neighbor's niece, Lucy, befriends Dade early in the book. Lucy quickly sees that Dade is gay and admits being lesbian. This friendship survives the book and helps Dade talk openly about anything and everything.

The relationship between Alex and Dade gets stronger and stronger as the book progresses. I was reading an e-book on my phone, so I was not aware that I was 84% of the way through the book until I went to put in a status here on Goodreads. I felt warily bad that I was feeling very happy about the book but there was only 16% remaining. I really did not want this story to end!

I read to the ending in one final swoop as I walked around my quiet neighborhood, with puddles on the ground from a recent rain, 50 degree air so I my zipper up on my fleece, grey clouds nearby threatening - so I did not walk by any neighbors as I concentrated and let tears flow on this ending.

I am not a fan of how this book ended. Maybe I'm writing this too soon. You can see Dade is surely leaving the state and Alex is just not showing how he could follow. But I wanted it to happen. My heart hurts right now.

The ending all happened too fast. A twist with Pablo entered short and quick, but with too much impact for my liking. The four year old girl that was missing early in the book and was later found unharmed months later was not fully explained (to me) as to its real significance. I would love to debate with someone(s) about this small sub-story in the book. If you have read the book already and are reading this far into my review, I would love to hear your thoughts on little "Jenny".

Although the book did not win critical writing awards with me, I got hooked - and that's what I learned to like in this story. The pace was consistent. There were no glaring jumps. I really felt like "I was there". That is why the twists and quick speed of the ending took this book that started as a 4, morphed toward 5-star territory, back quickly to a solid 4.

I would read the first 90% of this book again, but I dislike the ending enough to know exactly where I would stop. You may feel differently, so I encourage you to read the book and let me know. ...more

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Mar 11, 2010 Nikyta rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Nikyta by: Juli

Shelves: m-m, contemporary, angst, ya, bubbles-safe, little-or-no-smexing, pb-or-hc, dont-like-the-ending, published-on-amazon

3.5 stars

I have a hard time rating this one because nothing really happens besides some mild angst on Dade's part and a brief scene at the end of the book. I also hated the ending but after I got into the story, I didn't really want to stop reading it.

I loved the characters. Well most of them. Dade is funny in a sarcastic, somewhat mellow, what-do-I-do-now type of way and I liked that. Lucy, Dade's lesbian friend, brought Dade out of his shell and made him into a funny, likable person. Alex was ...more

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Jul 28, 2009 Doug Beatty rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: teen

This book was tremendous. The characters are so life like and it really makes clear the angst of being a teenager. The story centers around Dade Hamilton who is secretly having sex with Pablo, one of the stars of the high school football team. Pablo also has a girlfriend and does not recognize any relationship with Dade other than that of clandestine sex partner, and Dade begins to question whether that is what he really wants. Dade is also having problems with his parents, his mother is driftin ...more

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Jul 06, 2010 Kassa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Vast Fields of Ordinary stands out in the dense genre of young adult fiction. Although it’s emotional and filled with angst, it’s also edgy and daring. It puts teenage behavior on display with all the rebellion, antisocial yearning mixed with tentative forays into drug and alcohol use. This is not a book parents will give to their kids to learn from but there is so much captured within these beautifully written pages that readers can’t help but identify and learn from the characters. I can easil Vast Fields of Ordinary stands out in the dense genre of young adult fiction. Although it’s emotional and filled with angst, it’s also edgy and daring. It puts teenage behavior on display with all the rebellion, antisocial yearning mixed with tentative forays into drug and alcohol use. This is not a book parents will give to their kids to learn from but there is so much captured within these beautifully written pages that readers can’t help but identify and learn from the characters. I can easily see why this book was nominated for YA genre in the recent Lambda Literary awards. If you’re a fan of young adult fiction, read this book.

The story follows the main protagonist Dade as he struggles through the summer after high school and before college. This is a time of learning and growth for Dade in many ways, both positive and destructive. He’s learning to recognize unhealthy relationships, such as the one he has with the deeply closeted Pablo. Breaking away from the cycle of cruel behavior and late night hookups is not easy for Dade and only the appearance of a new friend in crazy, outrageous Lucy and new crush Alex propel Dade in new directions. Yet these directions are questionable at best with Alex’s job as a minor drug dealer and Dade’s growing frustration with his home life.

This is of course at the heart a classic coming of age story, one that has been told countless times. The repetition of the theme somehow never manages to dilute its continued importance and relevance. There have always been teenagers coming out to themselves, friends, and family and searching for acceptance and recognition. Here Dade is in many ways a typical quiet teenager. He’s picked on at school, which he accepts and ignores as much as possible. He’s bullied by girls and boys alike, never defending himself and struggling to ignore the growing hurt. Dade accepts for years a pseudo friendship with Pablo. Pablo dates a popular, bullying girl but messes around with Dade on the side, treating Dade like a disposable, convenient release.

Pablo and Dade’s complicated relationship forms a driving force in the story as Dade slowly learns to let go of his false dreams and accept his reality. It’s a difficult, complicated process and likely one Dade couldn’t have accomplished without the appearance of a new crush. Dade may not always be a likable character with his actions and thoughts. He struggles with understandable emotions and doesn’t always make the right choices. He vacillates between his emotions and acts out against his parents. He uses his upcoming College freedom to rebel, drinking and doing drugs without fear of repercussions. His parents, who do truly love him but are wrapped up in their own drama shows the complexity of teenagers and parents at that cusp. None of the characters are saints and often they act in selfish, predictable ways but they are likely to resonate with readers.

The writing is compelling and technically great. The prose is crisp, clean, and nicely detailed without ever slowing the pace or boring the reader. The pace is quite even and the pages fly by quickly as the action moves from one scene to the next. The typical, recognizable party atmosphere of newly graduated high school students stands out with its cruelty and desperation. Again, these are timeless scenes that may not offer something uniquely different but are still engaging and absorbing. The graphic nature of the various actions – from sex to doing drugs to vomiting from drinking – is offered without remorse or shame. The edgy quality to the story helps cement the authenticity of its actions, not afraid to go the dark corners no one wants to admit teenagers get up to. This doesn’t celebrate those behaviors but honestly depicts the kinds of things teenagers do that parents want to ignore.

The underlying issue of Dade’s sexuality, specifically his homosexuality, is an interesting inclusion. It’s clearly a main theme but Dade’s struggles with life, relationships, and identity feel more universal. On the one hand that broadens the audience who can identify and relate to the characters, but it also slightly washes out the affect of Dade’s sexuality. Several times I felt the entire story could have been told even if Dade had been straight. This helps show that the problems affecting young men and women are much bigger than sexuality while keeping that thread important and relevant. It doesn’t take over the story and dominate and I’m left feeling conflicted if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

On the whole this is a completely enthralling read, almost not always easy. There are a few missteps such as the prolonged subplot about the missing autistic girl, Jenny. This obsession mirrors Dade’s angst in a lot of ways but often too obscurely to make the point the story is trying. Instead it feels more distracting and convoluted. Often the most sympathetic of the cast, Alex, struggles to understand Dade’s obsession with Jenny, eventually accepting without understanding. This confusion is likely to mirror the reader unfortunately. Additionally the characters of Alex and Lucy are truly stunning. Both deserve more than the few mentions in the book, though they are so compelling they threatened to take the book over. I’d love to see both of these characters get their own stories; their complex personalities richly deserve it.

If you haven’t read this offering, now is the perfect time to pick this up. It’s not exactly a light hearted beach read but it has a great narrator voice that will keep you glued to the story. While nothing earth shattering or ground breaking may be included, Vast Fields of Ordinary still offers something important, relevant, and not to be missed. The excellent writing, great cast, and honest portrayal are highly likely to resonate with readers of all kinds. ...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Ellen Hopkins rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An important book, especially for young gay men.

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May 22, 2020 charlotte, (½ of readsrainbow) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt, aoc-et-al, ya-or-mg-lit, lgbtq-authors, latinx-characters, m-lgbt, romance, f-lgbt-side, 1-point-5, ya-or-mg-contemporary

(1.5)

Rep: gay mc, gay li, lesbian side character, Black & Latino side characters

CWs: homophobic language, biphobia, mentioned past relationship btwn 18 y/o and 30+ y/o, physical abuse, sexual harassment, suicide of a side character

some Thoughts

• the slurs are tiring, like every other word that comes out of these characters' mouths is the f slur and i hate it thanks

• the biphobia involved in this like, pablo could be bi did you ever think that, or is it just gay/straight and nothing else

• 18 and ...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Jacob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read this book a year ago, and it's narrator quickly became one of those characters who stuck with me as I moved on to other books. (spoilers) He is a young man dealing with his parents dysfunctional relationship, his own burgeoning sexuality, and the rejection from the young man he loves. This book beautifully depicts what being a gay teen can be like. Life for many teenagers is not sanitary or politically correct. If you think being a drug dealer or excessive smoking and drinking aren't real ...more

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Nov 08, 2009 Ralph Gallagher rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Ralph Gallagher by: Thomas

This novel is about Dade Hamilton's last summer at home. He goes to parties, goes to work and meets a few friends. The boy he's fooling around with pretty much dumps him and he meets a new boy named Alex who he falls in love with.

Okay, I liked this book overall but there were a lot of things I didn't like about it. I think there were too many side plots going on and none of them were really developed at all. The whole thing with Jenny Moore was weird, and didn't really have anything to do with t ...more

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Apr 18, 2010 Ami rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-or-new-adult, lgbtq-fiction

3.5 stars

I don't have many experiences with GLBT Young Adult, in fact this might only be my 4th books in this genre. I'm glad that I don't find too many angst or that "search of sexual preference". This is like reading one or two other young adult fiction titles, of living in a suburb, with a gay teenager as lead character.

Dade Hamilton already know that he is gay. He never has that urge to try with girls. I'm sort of glad that it doesn't focus on his high school years -- I've read some other s ...more

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Jan 07, 2010 Hannah rated it liked it · review of another edition

So good. Such a disappointing ending. I can see how thematically the ending works, but...ugh, it hurts like a broken heart.

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Aug 05, 2009 Marlan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A good read. When I started it, I prepared myself for a long and bitter tale of closeted suburban hell. Dade's parents are splitting up, his hot closeted boyfriend is a selfish asshole, and he has no real friends in school. Thankfully things go up from here. The summer after he graduates he meets up with Lucy, a spitfire lesbian who becomes his bff. She's awesome and gives him the emotional support he's been starving for. Dade also meets Alex, an adorable drug dealer who's crazy sweet and is pre ...more

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Jul 22, 2013 Rachel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Dade is an entirely realistic character. There are times you want to hug him and there are times you want to slap him.

Dade has just graduated high school and is coming into his own in a small, stuffy town where every house looks the same. He is torn between his love of the fields and the country and the freedom it provides, and the structure of his life now in a suburb where you eat dinner at the country club and keep all your dark secrets hidden away. His parents are in a loveless marriage and ...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Nyrae Dawn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Omg.... OMG, did I love this book. So incredible. I finished it last night and spent half the night awake thinking about it. So, so good. The voice is incredible and very authentic. This book goes on my keeper shelf, for sure.

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Feb 07, 2018 Beagle Lover (Avid Reader) rated it liked it · review of another edition

A very worthy 3.75 stars.

Review to follow...

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Jun 13, 2014 Jason rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: m-m, gay, gay-life, gay-romance, gay-sex, next-up-list, gay-themed, gay-love, the-gays-invade, eh-maybe

This is another Y/A novel that sets the standard of a boring and trite approach to the genre and one that follows the same trope of gay youth need to suffer to evolve.

The book begins with Dade, a 17 year old closeted guy scrawling a middle school-esque Name + obsession on the inside of a bathroom stall, during, all things prom. This sets the stage and the obvious atmosphere for the novel. Here we go again, I thought; another sad guy whom of course is going to get all self-injurious on his emoti ...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Cris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book was about a boy who had problems with his family. His mom and dad weren't doing so good and on the verge of getting a divorce. To top it off, his "boyfriend" wasn't acting like one. his boyfriend was still in the closet and wasnt planning on coming out anytime soon because he had one of the hottest girls in school. At least this is his last summer before college, but what will this summer bring? It brings crazy evenings and parties and a boring job at a super market. As well as meetin This book was about a boy who had problems with his family. His mom and dad weren't doing so good and on the verge of getting a divorce. To top it off, his "boyfriend" wasn't acting like one. his boyfriend was still in the closet and wasnt planning on coming out anytime soon because he had one of the hottest girls in school. At least this is his last summer before college, but what will this summer bring? It brings crazy evenings and parties and a boring job at a super market. As well as meeting a mysterious kid named Alex who sells drugs. Can this trouble maker be someone in his life or just another guy to mess around with? Turns out his summer ends up being more interesting than he thought.
The theme of this book is that you shouldn't let the things people say to you put you down. Throughout the book, he was called a faggot a lot. Not only that but he was bullied for being a faggot. An idea would be that kids struggle a lot when their parents fight too much or on the verge of getting a divorce. In this book, he started smoking weed a lot more because of all his troubles. He wanted to get away from his parents so he did this to stay come. Another theme or idea would be yourself. He shaved his head for the thought of being different. As well as having a boyfriend and being with him in public even though he knew people would judge him.
What made the book so good is that many people can relate to it. I liked how brave the kid was because not all gay people are out, especially teens. I also liked that it seemed real like the author wrote it from experience or from a friend's experience. He put so much feeling and emotion into it. That's what makes a book good, the emotion in it. THe parts tha make you want to cry or the parts that make you feel like you're right there with the character. This is what made this book so good.
I would recommend this book to any kids who might have trouble with bullying for being gay or anything like that. Actually, I would recommend this book to everyone because once you start reading you won't be able to stop. This book shows what it's like to find your true identity and many kids would like that. Not only that but its a good read for everyoe and shows how things can change for the worst or for the best. ...more

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Jun 26, 2009 Brian Herrera rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: ya-contemporary-young-adult, ya-lgbtq

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. ** spoiler alert ** ** spoiler alert **

SUMMARY:
Dade begins his last summer at home feeling even more lonely and pathetic than usual. His parents seem ready to divorce the second he leaves for college. He seems not to have any friends he can trust. And his relationship with Pablo -- a down-low affair that's been the focus of Dade's hope for more than a year -- seems to be souring. But when Dade meets Lucy (a rebel from LA sent to live with her Iowa relatives for the summer) and Alex (a flirty bad ** spoiler alert ** ** spoiler alert **

SUMMARY:
Dade begins his last summer at home feeling even more lonely and pathetic than usual. His parents seem ready to divorce the second he leaves for college. He seems not to have any friends he can trust. And his relationship with Pablo -- a down-low affair that's been the focus of Dade's hope for more than a year -- seems to be souring. But when Dade meets Lucy (a rebel from LA sent to live with her Iowa relatives for the summer) and Alex (a flirty badboy from the wrong side of town), Dade's approach to life begins to change and, by the end of the summer, no one -- least of all Dade -- will ever be the same.

WHAT I ENJOYED ABOUT THIS BOOK:
:: The book, while yet another "summer before i go to college" story, feels palpably real. Burd exploits the intricate social landscapes of small town life and of high school society to craft a delightfully complex network of characters without losing hold of the clarifying tension -- Dade's inner emotional life -- that brings them all together.
:: I liked how the book handled Dade's and Pablo's sexuality. It's crass, and gross, and terrifyingly vulnerable -- while never being at all explicit. The contrast with Dade/Alex is effective.
:: I wish Pablo had been a little more fleshed out.
:: MAJOR SPOILER: This was my second book of the week in which a closeted Latino macho teen guy died tragically in the final act in ways that underscored the "lesson" of the book. So it was weird. I'm not sure why Pablo was Latino, but the character is a compelling one and I find myself troubled by the coincidence of a sketchy, sexy, closeted latino being killed (or, perhaps more accurately, killed themselves) to instantiate the novel's narrative resolution.
:: I wonder whether the missing autistic girl narrative thread was really necessary/illuminating/effective. At several points in the narrative, it did seem to be an effective device to amplify "tension" and uncertainty, but I'm not sure what it actually did (beyond being a diverting red herring).

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Mar 30, 2010 Brenna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Dade Hamiltion is the main character's name. This is his last summer before college and all he wants to do is get out of his crappy town, Iowa. There is one thing that Dade has going against him no matter where he seems to be and that's the fact that he's gay. Yes, Dade Hamiltion is gay. He tells his ceiling fan "I'm gay" everyday in hopes of eventually coming out to his parents. His mom is a pill popping mother who cares for Dade. Dades father is in another world of his own, trying to reach out ...more

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May 07, 2018 Rob rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt, young-adult

A simple, quick read. It had its tender moments, but also had its incredibly bizarre moments.

I wasn't particularly thrilled by sentences such as 'we were kissing again, slow and deliberate like ice melting on a countertop.' No, thank you. ...more

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Jan 06, 2012 Roger Market rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Having just read a bad–mediocre gay novella that was more porn than anything else, I read this book in two days—between work and sleep and my second anniversary celebration with the most wonderful man in the world—and it completely wrecked me. For one thing, I couldn't stop reading. That hasn't happened to me for a long time, for a book I've never read. I literally did not want to stop reading it, not even to go to bed.

The story is engrossing from the start, and while it is not perfect (because ...more

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Jan 06, 2014 Chris Hernandez rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: oh-so-good, damn-feels, mm-and-mmm

A heart breaking but beautifully written book from Nick Burd. The story was Dade being a closeted gay and him being a secret "fuck buddy" of one his jock friends. Then he met Alex, who made him feel special and loved.

The author was very believable and credible with how he delivered story of closeted gay until his coming out. The way he wrote the characters was amazing and will leave their marks to the reader. But the story, did not only focus on the story about being a closeted gay and his comi ...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Yinglin Chen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: freshman-year

The Vast Fields of Ordinary is an appropriate title for this Being 18, and going off to college in another state in a few months, things are pretty hectic in the life of Dade. Dade's life in general is pretty complicated, and definitely not like a teenager at all.

He's different, and not like the other teenagers that live around him. Life is complicated for Dade, but he doesn't have a choice but to live through all this trouble. Being bullied for his sexuality, is heartbreaking and really rude. ...more

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Jan 28, 2015 hal rated it it was ok

Shelves: lgbtq, young-adult, meh

Actual rating: 2.5 stars
The Vast Fields of Ordinary isn't really a terrible book. I just feel so emotionless after reading it. I just don't care.

It was easy enough to get through. At first it was kinda boring but things picked up once Dade met his friend Lucy. Something about the writing was nice and Dade was a fairly likable character. He kinda acts dumb at times but whatever.

Also, what was the tragedy mentioned on the back cover? Some random kid that he didn't even know disappeared? Kind of ...more

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About Nick Burd

Nick Burd

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Nick Burd attended the University of Iowa and received his MFA from The New School. He used to live in Brooklyn, New York; presently he lives in Los Angeles. The Vast Fields of Ordinary is his first novel.

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“Its hard to show people everything, you know? You never know what they'll do with it once they have it.” — 69 likes

“I think some love you can stand to let go of because it's ultimately for the best, but other types you have to stick with until the day you die even when it's hard.You have to think about that before you run away from wherever you are. And then when you know, you either stay or you go and pray thatyou're making the right decision.” — 32 likes

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