Conjoined at the Soul by Huston Piner - A review

Conjoined at the Soul by Huston Piner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Once again, Huston Piner has given us a coming of age tale that rings painfully true. His protagonist, Randy Clark, is so familiar to me from my own adolescence, and in fact, the entire cast of characters feels like people I knew and grew up with myself.

This is a remarkably deft and often humorous look at life as a gay teen in a time and place where that sort of thing was not cool, not cool at all. Of course, cool or not, it existed, and the rituals of teenage acceptance clash with Randy's journey of self-discovery.

I loved this book. I loved the beautiful accuracy of the pop culture of the time, the music, the clothing, the rites of passage. I loved the innate sweetness of the protagonist, and I ached for all the missteps and misunderstanding that plagued him. I loved his friends, and I loved the way the bigoted weren't magically converted to sympathizers. It's honest, and sometimes painfully so, but that's the true magic of this book.

I'd recommend this book with all my heart. It's just superb.

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