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Two Boys Kissing Hardcover – August 27, 2013
"You have to read this.” —Rainbow Rowell, bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Carry On
From the New York Times bestselling author of Every Day, this love story of shared humanity and history Hypable calls "an interconnecting web that will leave you emotionally exhausted and absolutely thrilled to have read something so beautiful and unique."
Based on true events—and narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS—Two Boys Kissing follows Harry and Craig, two seventeen-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teens dealing with universal questions of love, identity, and belonging.
- Print length208 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherKnopf Books for Young Readers
- Publication dateAugust 27, 2013
- Grade level9 and up
- Reading age14 years and up
- Dimensions4.94 x 0.77 x 8.56 inches
- ISBN-100307931900
- ISBN-13978-0307931900
- Lexile measureHL780L
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
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Review
- Rainbow Rowell, author of Eleanor & Park
“Remarkable.”
- Frank Bruni, The New York Times
Entertainment Weekly, August 21, 2013:
"Author David Levithan's poignant novel follows the stories of gay teens joined through an unconventional protest. A-"
The Washington Post, August 20, 2013:
"Over the years, Levithan has consistently explored new creative territory...'Two Boys Kissing' reveals his command of an intriguing, complex narrative with an unusual point of view: the first-person plural. This 'we' is the combined voice of men who died during the AIDS pandemic several decades ago. As the boys’ stories become more closely entwined and connect in a satisfying finale, the reflections of these 'shadow uncles' lend a quality of retrospection that is rare (and refreshing) in YA literature."
The Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2013:
"Open, frank and ultimately optimistic."
The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy, October 24, 2013:
"'Two Boys Kissing’ couldn’t have arrived at a more timely moment, just months after the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. The shift in society’s attitudes towards the LGBT community has long been embraced by many in the young adult crowd. Levithan seems to intuitively understand this generation—and his new book allows him to bring their particular struggles and joys to life."
Newsday, August 21, 2013:
"We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, goes an oft-paraphrased line. David Levithan gives vivid voice to it in his latest YA novel, 'Two Boys Kissing'.
BookPage, August 28, 2013:
"Levithan’s powerful, multifaceted novel explores just how far things have come for many gay teens—and how far things still need to go."
Starred Review, The Bulletin, September 2013:
"Both celebratory and elegiac… There’s much to discuss here about identity, about social media, about community—and it would be a particularly stellar choice for a multi-generational LGTBQ-focused book club.”
Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, June 3, 2013:
"A landmark achievement from a writer and editor who has helped create, in literature, a haven for queer youth."
"No one does heart-pulling emotion like Levithan, and this book, coming a decade after his groundbreaking debut, 'Boy Meets Boy,' has special resonance."
- Gayle Forman, author of Just One Day and Just One Year, for Bookish.com
"Brilliant, moving, important, and wise."
- Jennifer E. Smith, author of This Is What Happy Looks Like and The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
WAMC Northeast Public Radio, September 19, 2013:
"Two Boys Kissing will make you laugh and cry, but best of all, it will make you relive those perfect innocuous moments of finding and then being with your first love."
Romantic Times Book Review, September 2013:
"Thought provoking, poignant and beautifully written, above all this is an unbelievably important book for anyone who has struggled with identity, love and loss. The omniscient narration is incredibly moving and appreciative of the fragility of life. A groundbreaking addition to the LGBT genre and community."
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2013:
"The novel has genuine moments of insight and wisdom...Inspiring."
Hypable.com, August 23, 2013:
"Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan takes the stories of all these boys and spins them into an interconnecting web that will leave you emotionally exhausted and absolutely thrilled to have read something so beautiful and unique...Will educate, entertain and move you."
Bookish.com, May 6, 2013:
"Levithan takes contemporary to a whole new space with this novel, finding new ground in storytelling around important issues that directly affect teens today."
Booklist, August 1, 2013:
"Levithan leans intensely into this work...There’s little doubt that this title, with its weight, significance, and literary quality, will find its way into LGBTQ and wider cannons. Stock up."
School Library Journal, September 2013:
"The story will engage readers, both female and male."
"The high level of imaginative and intuitive empathy that is apparent in all of his works is especially strong here—as not only are his protagonists fully realized, but so are the voices of the collective narration, whose experiences are as varied as the characters on the page... It is the best book I have read this year."
- Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Books Inc.
"Everyone needs to read this, not just YA. How perfectly David puts the past, present and future into one small novel. Now, as soon as my eyes stop watering and the goose bumps on my arms go away, I can continue my day."
- Carolyn Anbar, Watchung Booksellers
"Levithan's choice of narrator was inspiring and heartbreaking. Giving a voice to that generation and exposing young kids to those voices, blew me away...Two Boys Kissing feels like a very important book, something I think everyone should read and something that's touched me in a way no YA has in a really long time."
- John Kwiatkowski, Murder by the Book
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Be thankful for that.
You can't know what it was like for us then--you will always be one step ahead.
Be thankful for that, too.
Trust us: There is a nearly perfect balance between the past and the future. As we become the distant past, you become a future few of us would have imagined.
It's hard to think of such things when you are busy dreaming or loving or screwing. The context falls away. We are a spirit-burden you carry, like that of your grandparents, or the friends from your childhood who at some point moved away. We try to make it as light a burden as possible. And at the same time, when we see you, we cannot help but think of ourselves. We were once the ones who were dreaming and loving and screwing. We were once the ones who were living, and then we were the ones who were dying. We sewed ourselves, a thread's width, into your history.
We were once like you, only our world wasn't like yours.
You have no idea how close to death you came. A generation or two earlier, you might be here with us.
We resent you. You astonish us.
It's 8:07 on a Friday night, and right now Neil Kim is thinking of us. He is fifteen, and he is walking over to his boyfriend Peter's house. They have been going out for a year, and Neil starts by thinking about how long this seems. From the beginning, everyone has been telling him it won't last. But now, even if it doesn't last forever, it feels like it has lasted long enough to be meaningful. Peter's parents treat Neil like a second son, and while Neil's own parents are still alternately confused and distressed, they haven't barred any of the doors.
Neil has two DVDs, two bottles of Diet Dr Pepper, cookie dough, and a book of poems in his backpack. This--and Peter--is all it takes for him to feel profoundly lucky. But luck, we've learned, is actually part of an invisible equation. Two blocks away from Peter's house, Neil gets a glimpse of this, and is struck by a feeling of deep, unnamed gratitude. He realizes that part of his good fortune is his place in history, and he thinks fleetingly of us, the ones who came before. We are not names or faces to him; we are an abstraction, a force. His gratitude is a rare thing--it is much more likely for a boy to feel thankful for the Diet Dr Pepper than he is to feel thankful for being healthy and alive, for being able to walk to his boyfriend's house at age fifteen without any doubt that this is the right thing to do.
He has no idea how beautiful he is as he walks up that path and rings that doorbell. He has no idea how beautiful the ordinary becomes once it disappears.
If you are a teenager now, it is unlikely that you knew us well. We are your shadow uncles, your angel godfathers, your mother's or your grandmother's best friend from college, the author of that book you found in the gay section of the library. We are characters in a Tony Kushner play, or names on a quilt that rarely gets taken out anymore. We are the ghosts of the remaining older generation. You know some of our songs.
We do not want to haunt you too somberly. We don't want our legacy to be gravitas. You wouldn't want to live your life like that, and you won't want to be remembered like that, either. Your mistake would be to find our commonality in our dying. The living part mattered more.
We taught you how to dance.
It's true. Look at Tariq Johnson on the dance floor. Seriously--look at him. Six feet three inches tall, one hundred eighty pounds, all of which can be converted by the right clothes and the right song into a mass of heedless joy. (The right hair helps, too.) He treats his body like it's made of fireworks, each one timed to the beat. Is he dancing alone or dancing with everyone in the room? Here's the secret: It doesn't matter. He traveled for two hours to get to the city, and when it's all over, it will take him over two hours to get home. But it's worth it. Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do. We watch Tariq when he's sitting in Spanish class, sketching imaginary maps in his notebook. We watch Tariq when he's sitting in the cafeteria, stealing glances at older boys. We watch Tariq as he lays the clothes on his bed, creating the outline of the person he's going to be tonight. We spent years doing these things. And this was what we looked forward to, the thing that Tariq looks forward to. This liberation.
Music isn't much different now from what it was when we hit the dance floor. This means something. We found something universal. We bottled that desire, then released it into the airwaves. The sounds hit your body, and you move.
We are in those particles that send you. We are in that music.
Dance for us, Tariq.
Feel us there in your freedom.
It was an exquisite irony: Just when we stopped wanting to kill ourselves, we started to die. Just when we were feeling strength, it was taken from us.
This should not happen to you.
Adults can talk all they want about youth feeling invincible. Surely, some of us had that bravado. But there was also the dark inner voice telling us we were doomed. And then we were doomed. And then we weren't.
You should never feel doomed.
It is 8:43 on the same Friday night, and Cooper Riggs is nowhere. He's in his room, alone, and it feels like nowhere. He could be outside his room, surrounded by people, and it would still feel like nowhere. The world, in his eyes, is flat and dull. All sensation has been leaked from it, and instead its energy is running through the busy corridors of his mind, making angry, frustrated noise. He is sitting on his bed, and he is wrestling within himself, and ultimately the only thing he can think to do is go on the Internet, because life there is just as flat as real life, without the expectations of real life. He's only seventeen, but online he can be twenty-two, fifteen, twenty-seven. Whatever the other person wants him to be. He has fake profiles, fake photos, fake stats, and fake histories. The conversations are largely fake, too, full of flirtation he'll never deliver on, small sparks that will never turn to fire. He will not admit it, but he is actually looking for the surprise of something genuine. He opens seven sites at once, keeping his mind busy, tricking himself out of nowhere, even if it still feels like nowhere. He gets so lost in the search that nothing else seems to matter, and time becomes worthless, to be spent on worthless things.
We know that some of you are still scared. We know that some of you are still silent. Just because it's better now doesn't mean that it's always good.
Dreaming and loving and screwing. None of these are identities. Maybe when other people look at us, but not to ourselves. We are so much more complicated than that.
We wish we could offer you a creation myth, an exact reason why you are the way you are, why when you read this sentence, you will know it's about you. But we don't know how it began. We barely understood the time that we knew. We gather the things we learned, and they don't nearly add up to fill the space of a life.
You will miss the taste of Froot Loops.
You will miss the sound of traffic.
You will miss your back against his.
You will even miss him stealing the sheets.
Do not ignore these things.
Product details
- Publisher : Knopf Books for Young Readers; 1st edition (August 27, 2013)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307931900
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307931900
- Reading age : 14 years and up
- Lexile measure : HL780L
- Grade level : 9 and up
- Item Weight : 11.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 4.94 x 0.77 x 8.56 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #845,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
David Levithan is the author and co-author of over twenty YA novels, many of them bestsellers. His first YA novel was Boy Meets Boy in 2003. For more about David and his books, you can check out his website davidlevithan.com. His lover's dictionary can also be found on Twitter at @loverdiction.
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Every now and then I read a book that I just know will stick with me forever. When I find one of these special books, I want every person I know – and even ones I don't – to read it. That was definitely the case with Two Boys Kissing. This book was truly something special and I can't recommend it highly enough.
“If you let the world in, you open yourself up to the world. Even if the world doesn't know that you're there.”
I read the audiobook version, which I was pleasantly surprised to find was narrated by the author himself. The book itself was powerful, but having the author read his own words made it that much more so. There's something about listening to an author reading their own words and realizing how much of themselves they put into the characters and the story, that made this one even more powerful and special then it would have been with a different narrator. You could hear his passion for the story in each word he spoke. And those words? They were beautiful and honest. The only drawback of reading this one in audiobook format is that there's no way to highlight the beautiful passages... and there were a lot of them. Had I read this in eBook format, I'd have highlighted half the book. I had to go seek out quotes on Goodreads.
“...he hopes that maybe it'll make people a little less scared of two boys kissing than they were before, and a little more welcoming to the idea that all people are, in fact, born equal, no matter who they kiss or screw, no matter what dreams they have or love they give.”
Two Boys Kissing is inspired by a true story. Many of them, actually. While it's true the book mostly centers around Harry and Craig's endeavor to break the Guinness World Record for the longest kiss, there are several other characters whose stories are every bit as important to this book. Harry and Craig's bold gesture has a huge impact on these other characters who are attempting to navigate tricky situations on their own.
“Love is so painful, how could you ever wish it on anybody? And love is so essential, how could you ever stand in its way?”
This book was gorgeous and thought-provoking. I know it will stick with me for a very, very long time. It moved me to tears, made me appreciate the struggle of my gay friends, and most of all, made me realize that while progress has undeniably been made, there's still so much more left to achieve. I've recently read that some parents are petitioning schools to remove this book from their libraries. Now, I'm not going to get on my soapbox on this, but all I can say is that I hope that while the parents aren't open-minded enough to give this book a shot, that the school officials will take a few hours and read this beautiful, powerful book and realize taking it out of libraries would do more harm than good, by far.
“You can give words, but you can't take them. And when words are given, that is when they are shared. We remember what that was like. Words so real they were almost tangible. There are conversations you remember, for certain. But more than that, there is the sensation of conversation. You will remember that, even when the precise words begin to blur.”
I wasn't sure how the Greek Chorus of gay men would work in this book. It took a little bit of time for me to fully embrace it, but it wasn't long before it became one of my favorite things about this book. Their voices were so honest and it was incredibly moving listening to their thoughts on the events taking place in current day, as compared to their struggles. I got entirely wrapped up in each individual character's story, though I don't think any moved me more than Cooper's. His voice – and the rest of the voices – were so authentic and believable. I've listened to friends talk about some of the same struggles and I think that's what made this book so personal to me.
"We know that some of you are still scared. We know that some of you are still silent. Just because it's better now doesn't mean that it's always good.”
There's not one thing I would change about this book, except to maybe make it longer. The world needs more books like this, more writers like David Levithan. This was an emotional and hopeful read. We've come a long way, but there's still so much further to come.
“We do not start as dust. We do not end as dust. We make more than dust. That's all we ask of you. Make more than dust.”
Seventeen-year-old former boyfriends Harry and Craig are planning to set a new Guinness World Record for continuous kissing. To do so, they'll need to kiss continuously for over 32 hours. This will take physical strength, yes, but also significant emotional fortitude and support from many, many people, since the sight of two boys kissing at all--let alone publicly for 32+ hours--will be difficult if not downright unacceptable for some.
While Harry and Craig undertake their record-setting quest, navigate their true feelings for one another, and deal with the myriad number of issues that will arise during this period, two other young couples are dealing with their own issues. Peter and Neil, who have been together for over a year, are struggling with trying to determine what their expectations of each other and their future should be, while Avery and Ryan, who just met, are struggling with issues of gender identity and all of the nerves of a blossoming relationship. Meanwhile, Tariq, a friend of Craig and Harry's, is trying to overcome his fears after being beaten up by a group of thugs, and Cooper is dealing with the aftermath of his parents' discovery of his homosexuality.
All of these storylines may seem somewhat typical, but Levithan develops each with depth and empathy in a short number of pages. And what lifts this book up even further is that it is narrated by a nameless Greek chorus of men who died of AIDS. Part lamentation for what they lost, part reflection on the struggles each of the characters are going through, since they've seen it all, their words are so insightful, so moving, so dead-on in many, many ways, I literally found myself tearing up multiple times as I flew through the book.
"You must understand: We were like Cooper. Or at least had moments when we were like Cooper. Just as we had moments when we were like Neil, Peter, Harry, Craig, Tariq, Avery, Ryan. We had moments when we were like each of you. This is how we understand. We wore your flaws. We wore your fears. We made your mistakes."
I read this entire book in one day, and I was moved and inspired beyond my expectations. Levithan made me laugh, think, and, as I mentioned earlier, cry with his words. I can't even begin to count the number of times he so perfectly captured many of the feelings I had as a teenager struggling with my sexuality, with self-esteem, with bullying, with wondering if my parents and family and friends would ever be able to accept me for who I was. And the book was pitch-perfect in its portrayal of the rush of emotions when you first meet someone you like and realize they feel the same way, the anxiety of wondering whether there will be a second date, the beauty of a first kiss.
I've said before how much I marvel at the state of YA fiction today, especially LGBT-themed fiction. I wish that Two Boys Kissing had existed when I was a teenager, because it would have been a tremendous help and comfort to me. I wish there was some way this book could be required reading for those struggling with their sexuality and with self-acceptance, as I believe it really could make a difference. Levithan doesn't create an unrealistic world where there are no problems and no struggles, but he shows how wonderful life has the potential to be, even when you don't think it can.
This is honestly one of the best books I've read in some time. Thank you, David Levithan, for this experience. I feel changed for the better.
Top reviews from other countries
I need to read it again Now!
Should be required reading in schools to open discussions.
Now, instead of doing the synopsis near the beginning like I usually do, it's going to be an ongoing thing. I'll start off by mentioning the narrative because it's a peculiar one.
The novel is told from the perspective of AIDS victims of the late 1900s, before the disease had been identified and before there was research for medicine. I didn't initially connect the dots to the history of AIDS, but the narrative is kind of the collective voice of the initial victims, most of whom were homosexual men. AIDS was even called Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) for a brief period of time.
The story is told in a way that seems as if those men are overlooking the lives of people living now, homosexual men especially, to see how they're doing. This method of storytelling may not be everyone's cup of tea but I liked it. It took a few chapters to get used to but it was an interesting, and good, choice.
The book follows multiple characters. The novel's namesake are two boys, Harry and Craig, and they're kissing because they want to set the world record for the longest kiss (which is over 32 hours long, by the way). They used to be a couple but they're not anymore. Their story is them trying to navigate they relationship and, you know, the whole... kissing for 32 hours thing.
Then we have Peter and Neil. They're a couple and have been for a year. Their parts show us what a normal relationship is like, on a regular basis. It's not something we get to see often in YA because the stories featured are of the how-they-got-together variety. And I gotta say, while it wasn't something exciting or dramatic, it was engaging. I loved seeing them together and reading what is possibly one of the most realistic representations of a romantic relationship.
The third pair we have is Avery and Ryan. They've just met and this is the classic meet-cute. And it really is very cute. So we have three pairs in different stages of a relationship.
Last, we have Cooper. He's on his own, he's lonely and he's depressed. He's trying to figure things out but he has no hope that he'll ever be okay. His family isn't the kind to be supportive of his sexuality, and that made Cooper's story difficult. His narrative (which David Levithan does a fantastic job with) is sad and he will totally make you cry.
Overall, we have four stories that aren't really connected but still feel like they are thanks to the way the book is written. I found this novel to be beautiful and I highly recommend reading it.