Boys. Love. YA

Boy’s fall in love too, y’ know.

I wrote a book – Kook -  about a boy and girl.  They fall in love; with surfing, with the sea, with each other.  They go to dangerous places.  They go too far, too soon.

That’s it in a nutshell.  A love story.  Sort of.

 'A gripping and heartbreaking story of love and obsesssion.' The Guardian.

It’s not gushy, or overly emotional. It doesn’t even resemble a ‘romance.’  It’s about danger and thrills as much as it’s about the bond between wannabe surfer, Sam and beautiful, damaged Jade.  So you’d think it’s a book that isn’t ‘for’ boys or girls, but, like any book, can and should be read by both.

But, here’s the thing.  At time of writing, on Goodreads, just over 95% of Kook’s readers are female. Yup. That’s right. Only one in twenty of my readers are dudes.

That’s what happens when you put love at the core of your YA book.  *Sigh* I’m not really complaining.  (Girl readers: I love that you’re reading Kook, I love that you get it), but it does feel a little imbalanced. Because boys are – obviously – half of the equation in books with hetero relationships at the centre.  But how much YA focuses on the girl, or is told from the girl’s POV.  A lot of it. Most of it.  And who reads it? Mostly girls too.

All this gets me wondering: wouldn’t it be great if we had more YA, with love in it, but from the guy’s perspective, and if we had more guys reading it too?

Weirdly, reading about love, is something of a taboo for guys.  Take note: Exploring love as a theme, doesn’t automatically make the book a ‘romance.’ But my guess is, a lot of boys think it does.

Perhaps this is something to do with the nature of the stories that dominate, of which, more below. For now: Let’s just be clear. Boys do fall in love.  Every bit as much as girls. And in the teen years, the heart gets just as much stimulation as, ahem, other organs. Boys too, get, confused, excited, broken, high-on-attraction, dizzy and blinded. By love.

BUT, boys are still emotionally stilted about the whole thing. And sometimes they have difficulty reading, or even talking about it.

There’s this narrative boys live by, half way between new-man-sensitive and old school be-a-dude ways of thinking.  Which is where I think a lot of boys are stuck, right now.  It runs something like this:

Cry if you have to; its good to have strong emotions (but only if you really have to and actually, as we’re on the subject, really don’t, unless it is in extreme circumstances such as an actual death). Fall in love, sure (but not as much as, or in the way that, girls do).  Express your feelings (a little but, don’t really talk about this stuff !!)

Here’s how you should respond to any emotional turmoil resulting from interaction with the other half of our species:

Man up. Drink up. Watch some porn. Go surfing/skating/shooting pool.

Because that’s living. Not moping or crooning. Get over it, and yourself.

And I’ve heard this stuff a lot – and worse.

This outdated narrative still runs. And it’s a brave guy that speaks out against it. If you want to make yourself a world-class target for piss taking, wax lyrical to your mates about how much you love your girlfriend.  I dare you.

As I say, mostly it’s girls who read this stuff. Maybe that won’t change, maybe it will.   If it doesn’t, hopefully Kook, and other love/boys’ POV book do something useful for girls, at least.  Because they know they fall in love, and I know (because I’ve been told a bunch of times), part of what drives girls to read Kook, is curiousity.  Along the lines of: ‘I fall in love…, but what’s it like for the guy?’ 

So YA has a job to do, for both sexes, all genders and all types of sexuality.  There seems to be lot out there, if you’re a girl, or gay or transgender, but maybe not enough that will help young men comes to terms with their sexuality.  Like any literature, it has a task to explore the stuff under the surface, stuff we may even be uncomfortable with. We need to talk about love and all the mess that comes with it.  We need to tell stories that show a different narrative to the one described above.