Looking to read more fictional books that explore experiences of being a teenage boy or young man coming of age in the world.
Read Call Me By Your Name and thoroughly enjoyed it. Looking for something similar to this, though it seems there is more material in this theme with female main characters.
For reference, I am looking for something that discusses things below the surface, and 'obscene'. For example, these are books I have enjoyed: Milk Fed; My Year of Rest and Relaxation; Death Valley; Eileen; Big Swiss; Once More, With Feeling.
I have considered Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh, but I'm into more contemporary/reality than fantasy.
Bonus if it has queer themes, but not a requirement.
by ExtensionFeeling872
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Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Felix Ever After and King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender. Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
Stop-Time by Frank Conroy is a must read. Surprised it’s rarely if ever mentioned here.
The Shards, by Bret Easton Ellis
Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford.
Hermann Hesse:
· *Siddhartha.*
· *Demian*.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
School for Love by Olivia Manning
The New David Espinoza by Fred Aceves, it’s YA and about the pressure on teenaged boys to look a certain way not to be considered “wimpy.”
It’s not an easy read, especially if you’re not from the UK due to the northern English slang, but What It Feels Like For A Girl, by Paris Lees almost fits your bill.
It’s the gritty memoir of an (at the time) young boy becoming trans. It’s not fiction so perhaps that excludes it.
It hit me really hard, but I couldn’t put it down.
Call Me By Your Name is this months Queer Reading Group pick, so it sounds like I should pick it up this weekend!