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The Screwed Up Life Of Charlie (2008)

by Drew Ferguson(Favorite Author)

3.76 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0758263473 (ISBN13: 9780758263476)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Kensington Publishing Corporation

review 1: Quality LGBT fiction has become a real interest of mine lately, especially fiction for YA readers. I saw this book recommended on a blog and decided to give it a go. Being a bit of a geeky gay myself I thought it would make for an interesting read.And interesting it was! Charlie is a great character who you side with almost immediately. I found his upfront persona brilliantly refreshing and found his bumpy journey through school and sexuality both hilarious and understandable. This book does not hold back in its description of gay relations. Whether it be physical or part of Charlie's fantasties, there was very little left to the imagination. Interestingly I found this a good thing as so often gay fiction for YA readers holds back from the fumbles and squishiness of it all... more. It's important not to demonize the sex act and I think Drew handled this very well.Characters and relationships all work well throughout the book and it's good to see Charlie has supporters, friends, enemies, people who are not sure how to act around him and the less understanding to deal with.In my opinion the storyline about Rob's mother and her death felt like it was from another book. It was here that I felt the author may have lost sight of his goal - to show how teenagers can forge sexual relationships and deal with love. Rob's turnaround at the guy he has been besotted with throughout the book didn't really ring true which spoiled it a little for me. This lead to a slightly unsatisfying conclusion as Charlie moves on to the next potential guy.On a design note I thought the jacket was very poor. The boy on the front looks more 13 than 17 and I didn't get the shirt, tie or post-it notes on the eyes either. An opportunity missed I think. Overall, it was a good read and one I think would make for great reading at Secondary schools. The biggest plus for the book is showing a gay teen as an 'ordinary' guy who has to deal with all the same school, life, relationship stuff that everybody can relate to.
review 2: An awesome friend of mine recommended this to me God knows how many years ago, and I've just gotten around to picking it up. The gist of what I knew about this story going in was that the main character is gay, the setting is practically my hometown, and it's incredibly racy.On the one hand, this is only a surface description of the book. On the other, these are the three things I focused on the most. "The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second" has a pretty self-explanatory title. Charlie is the eighteen year old protagonist, about to graduate from Crystal Lake South High School (yes, all my local friends, you heard me correctly) who's trying to make sense of his life in the midst of applying for college, dealing with family drama, and falling in love for the first time.The first half of the story made me laugh out loud several different times. One of the strengths of Ferguson's novel was the authentic--and often crude--voice of the male narrator. All of the events are told through Charlie's diary entries and the college essay he keeps taking stabs at, which gives him the excuse to pepper his narration with profanity and sexual references. No matter how funny or gross parts of it were, Charlie's story felt real.Hearing all the local references was one of the coolest parts of the book for me. The mentions of the Village Squire and Julie Ann's, the Cottage, and Cary-Grove only beating up on South's football team by a certain margin of points that year were what made the story. Then again, even if you have no familiarity with the area specifically, Charlie's commentary can be just as easily applied to most suburbs. My biggest problem with "Screwed Up Life" was the total tone switch about halfway through the story. We as readers go from hearing about crushes and drunken parties and Homecoming to assisted suicide, divorce, and bullying. I understood that life had to get worse for Charlie, that he had to face some of the issues the author had sort of been implying, but I didn't buy his reactions--or the reactions of the other people involved--to these issues. Maybe it was the irreverent voice with which the majority of the novel was written. Even when something bad was happening, I never quite felt the seriousness of it because even Charlie himself didn't seem to. And in spite of the hilarity of the story as a whole, most of the emotionally resonant moments for me weren't what Ferguson had probably intended. I enjoyed "The Screwed Up Life of Charlie the Second," and I'm glad I read it. I don't think I'd wait years to read it again though. less

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