Different for Boys by Patrick Ness, illustrations by Tea Bendix
Walker Books, 2023 978-1-5362-2889-2
Anthony (Ant) Stevenson has a lot of questions about sex, but most especially, “at what point is a person not a virgin anymore?” Is it when they >redacted<? Or when they’ve >redacted< with >redacted<? Or >entire sentence redacted<?
Ant wants to know more…about himself, and about his friends, and about, well, everything. But it’s hard to learn things when so much is >redacted< – and that’s how this book is written, with big black boxes (which the characters all comment on) obscuring some text the reader will intuit and some that isn’t quite so obvious, even with pictures to help.
Short, quiet, powerful, poetic, and real. Sex on the page, but it’s >redacted<, of course. Highly recommended for ages 14 to adult.
cussing, friendship, gay friends, high school, homophobia, kissing, masturbation, on-page sex, parents, rainbow+, redactions, sports, straight friends, teachers
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