the music of what happens bill konigsberg

So I'm glad Jordan's mother's scenes were few and far between, because every time those came up, I found myself cringing harder than any scene where Kevin wasn't involved. Maybe I don't have all the same troubles he does - my home life's more stable, for one thing - but I do see a lot of my own mother in Jordan's, particularly the emotional abuse and constant self-centering. What strikes a little closer to home for me, though, is Jordan's trauma, where he has to put up with a mother who freaks out at the drop of a hat, can't hold down any job, and always, always, always centers herself whenever anyone else's problems - namely, Jordan's - are brought up. (And thanks again, Harry, for giving me them before I picked the book up.) This isn't something I'm reading #ownvoices, though I know at least two friends with scarily similar stories to Max's, so take the trigger warnings seriously. Both Max and Jordan have traumas and tragedies in their backstories, with Max having been raped by a college guy - and let me tell you, Kevin is one of the most disgusting characters ever put to the page, with a real laundry list of gross acts to his name that I won't get into here - other than to say that, yes, he's racist in addition to being a rapist. Sweet moments like that make a good portion of the book, but there's also the aforementioned trigger warnings. The one where Max and Jordan go shirtless and start exploring the hills above Phoenix, foraging for prickly pears. It's not so minimalist, and it's told in dual POVs, to seek out a strong balance between, as Konigsberg puts it in his author's note at the start, 'the sacred masculine and the sacred feminine.' Though there's at least one scene that I read and immediately think, that's gotta be an Ari and Dante homage. I can see why it gets a lot of comparisons to Ari and Dante - the Southwestern setting, a certain retro vibe to it (though it's set in the present day but makes a lot of use of 80s music and an ancient food truck), one tough gay boy and one soft gay boy making an unlikely romance.īut this book, the first Bill Konigsberg book I've ever read, quickly sets itself apart from the object of its inevitable comparison. I've spent a day after finishing up reading the ARC to let my thoughts collect well enough, and I think I'm going to give it a 3.5 and round up to a 4. This one's a bit of a tough book for me to rate. Trigger warnings for this book: rape, PTSD, abusive parents, mental health issues. The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg

The music of what happens bill konigsberg