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Leave Myself Behind

Bart Yates

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Nov 20, 2018 Thomas rated it liked it

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

First published in 2004, Leave Myself Behind may have appealed to me if I had grown up in a time with fewer queer books. It features a mostly functional gay relationship that I imagine in 2004 would have been groundbreaking in a lot of ways. So, I want to honor how this book’s representation of gay teenagers may have very well helped many gay teens upon its initial publication over a decade ago, when things for queer youth were even worse than they are now. I also appreciated the consistent them First published in 2004, Leave Myself Behind may have appealed to me if I had grown up in a time with fewer queer books. It features a mostly functional gay relationship that I imagine in 2004 would have been groundbreaking in a lot of ways. So, I want to honor how this book’s representation of gay teenagers may have very well helped many gay teens upon its initial publication over a decade ago, when things for queer youth were even worse than they are now. I also appreciated the consistent theme of how our parents affect us, as well as how our parents are affected by events that can so often escape our awareness.

I feel like Leave Myself Behind took on a few too many topics though. There’s the recognition of gayness within the two male love interests, their coming out, an assault motivated by homophobia, our main character’s father recently died, our main character’s mother is obsessed with tearing down the house she and her son live in, our main character’s boyfriend’s mother has a bunch of drama going on, and more. I felt that instead of addressing a few of these topics in-depth, Bart Yates touched on each of them to keep the plot moving instead of providing more thorough exploration of these events and their emotional impact. The many different forces at play in this novel gave it the potential for lots of poignant nuance, yet the overload of topics itself prevented the book from reaching that full potential.

I also really did not like Noah, our main character. Yes, I support unlikable main characters, though I tend to support unlikable main characters when their unlikability is rooted in how we may unfairly judge them for traits that activate our stereotypes (e.g., an outspoken female character who is perceived as cold or annoying). However, with Noah, I sensed that he lacked much depth. Walking away from the book, I felt like I did not know much about him, other than that he likes art and occasionally makes fatphobic and sexist comments. Perhaps providing more internal reflection on his part that focused on his emotional reactions to all the events going on around him would have deepened his character. While he had some interesting philosophical musings, they sometimes would veer into problematic territories (e.g., when he thinks that the potential drawbacks of consensual sex are roughly equivalent to the potential drawbacks of sexual assault).

Overall, an okay book if you want a more retro queer YA read. However, I would much rather recommend Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe , The Miseducation of Cameron Post , More Happy Than Not , or What They Always Tell Us . Still searching for my next fab queer YA read! ...more

34 likes · Like · see review

Feb 01, 2011 Charlie Smith rated it liked it

Sep 08, 2013 Marlon | Books are gay as fuck marked it as to-read

Shelves: lgbtq

Jan 02, 2015 Erik Moscoso marked it as to-read

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