Openly Straight

Written by: Bill Konigsberg

First line: If it were up to my dad, my entire life would be on video.

Why you should read this book: After three years of having his life defined by his sexual orientation (validated by his mother's involvement in PFLAG and his father's constant documentation), Rafe decides to start over somewhere he can just present as "normal" and chooses an Ivy League-style boarding school halfway across the country from home as the setting for his new, not-openly-queer lifestyle. On the one hand, his plan works perfectly, and Rafe is soon ensconced among the ranks of the school's popular jocks who wouldn't have given the time of day to an openly gay guy, but on the other hand, Rafe is still gay, and now he has to deal with the question of how to deal with the kinds of kids who used to be his friends (who the jocks dislike), when to tell people from his old life he's in the closet, and what to do with his burgeoning bromance with one of his straight teammates. The friendship between Rafe and Ben develops in an honest, loving, and believable sequence as one character works through their sexuality and the other through their handling of the truth.

Why you shouldn't read this book:  Your wife will never, ever know that you're gay.