The Battle for Jericho in EVERYTHING BI

Jan 04, 2013 Anna (Bananas) rated it really liked it

Shelves: m-m, lgbtqia, favorites, bisexual, young-adult-coming-of-age

What a hilarious, poignant, awesome book. READ THIS! I enjoyed it so much. It's a gay young adult novel, written in first person, and the MC Jericho is a blast. I laughed throughout the book at his random asides, felt real affection for him and his friends, worried over him like a mother, and was relieved and thrilled with the ending.

It's just good stuff. Trust me.

There is a lot of religion in this book, which might put off some people. Personally, I could very much relate, because of how I wa ...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Silvio rated it it was amazing

The Battle for Jericho is surprisingly not a very hard read. It's more like a gentle, tender, emotional love song. A mixture of satisfying triumph after the struggle for one's true self despite of the resistance of his carved into heart beliefs in God; absolute happiness for a newly blossomed and hard-earned love; desperate longing for the acceptance of whom he cares about; and pain brought out by the bigoted attitude of everyone from friends to families.

One of the most extremely well done thing The Battle for Jericho is surprisingly not a very hard read. It's more like a gentle, tender, emotional love song. A mixture of satisfying triumph after the struggle for one's true self despite of the resistance of his carved into heart beliefs in God; absolute happiness for a newly blossomed and hard-earned love; desperate longing for the acceptance of whom he cares about; and pain brought out by the bigoted attitude of everyone from friends to families.

One of the most extremely well done thing about this book is the characterizations. Everyone has their own distinct personalities. However, I felt like they all reflect a little bit of my thoughts and beliefs. I could identify with them and therefore, became sympathetic to them regardless of occasionally hateful behavior. Pathetically stupid, poorly realized and disgustingly narrow-minded, I was once prejudiced against everything I deemed immoral/degrading/repulsing. Even now, I feel embarrassed whenever I remember what I had thought when I was much younger. Not that now I'm very good, but with every person I've had pleasure to meet and get to know them, through real life or books or whatever it is takes people and their lives its main subjects, I think I'd become much more patient and understanding, and for that I'm eternally thankful.

The character developments are handled admiringly and masterfully too, especially with Jericho. For me, nothing is more interesting, considering that I mostly read books for that very thing.

Taken thoughtfully and seriously, religion is a major part of the book. Do you believe God loves us as we are made? Or are you going to Hell for being a so-called sin named homosexual? Can you stand not being yourself for the acceptance of others? Questions like that. It also presents some religious matters that have bothered me for a long time, morally and...religiously.(view spoiler)

I really like the love scenes. They're surely intimate and passionate, yet somehow pure and innocent too. The most erotic scenes, to me, are the partly revealed, partly hidden, partly real, partly imaginative ones. For a while there hadn't been an actual book that made my heart race madly and excitingly like this one did.

I couldn't breathe for a completely unexpected moment closer to the end of the book, but don't worry, everything is going to be alright, eventually.

There are some laugh-out-loud moments, there are some bitingly poignant moments, all of them are mixed beautifully to create a book entirely about love: reverent love for God, unconditional love between family members, compassionate love between friends, intense love between lovers.

And, all I want to say is this is a book worth reading, and thinking about, and loving for a long long time.

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