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Summary from the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

As she tries to understand the closeness between her older brother and his best friend, fourteen-year old E**** finds her relationship with each one of them changing.

Notes:

From the Library of Congress catalog – electronic data provided by the publisher:

E**** loves L***[her brother] and J****…She is totally, madly in love with James…someone at school asks if L*** and J**** might be in love with each other…if J**** says he loves her, isn’t that just another way of saying he still loves L***? …a fast, furious story in which a quirky triangle learns to change its shape…(Library of Congress [LOC], Retrieved from Library of Congress)

Excerpts

Pondering a discussion with a friend and her crush on her older brother's friend, E**** initiates a discussion with her mother while shopping. They then go into a restaurant where her mother states that she is uncertain as to whether L*** is gay: "I don't know if your brother is gay," Mom says, pouring milk into the bottom of her cup. "It's clear to me he and J**** love each other. L*** seems happy more often than not." (p.36)

Later, E**** asks her brother and his friend "if they are a couple." An argument breaks out between the two boys. In the midst of his own frustration, her brother states that he is "not gay," but "J**** is gay.” (pp. 40-41)

The argument between the two continues in front of her: "Then answer this: What makes me gay and not you?" [her brother’s friend] asks. (p.41)

"You've slept with people," [her brother] says. (p.42)

Further into the book, she does research on gays and uncovers that "Michelangelo was gay. Oscar Wilde went to prison for being gay…but was married and had children." … "Now it's not a big deal. There's AIDS to worry about or getting attacked by a redneck, but that's about it."

Eventually, her brother’s friend kisses her, and she welcomed same. (Remember that this is the same boy who wanted E****’s brother, L***.) After kissing, J**** discusses a male high school senior with E****. He tells her that he and her brother have an argument over this senior high school student who was: “Smart. Funny. Cute enough.” (p.79) “I asked L*** what the point was of not letting someone love me. You know, someone who would let me love him….” (p.79)

Now, thinking to herself, she understood that “the thing that matters to him is what he [her brother’s friend] can have with somebody. Be it a girl, a boy, a man or a woman…This doesn’t make him straight, but it doesn’t make him gay either.” (p.81)

The story continues and discusses what takes place when she and J**** go to his room to have sex:

“When we close the door to his room, J**** always looks at my hands, checking them for paper cuts or hang nails. It seems we have read the same safe-sex manuals…After all, you can never be too careful. Especially since he himself hasn’t always been. Sometimes … he will say ‘You are only fourteen.” (p.136)

Research by M. Lyn