"Vast Fields of Ordinary" by Nick Burd

309 pages

It's Dade's last summer at home. He has a crappy job at Food World, a "boyfriend" who won't publicly acknowledge his existence, and parents on the verge of a divorce. All that keeps Dade going is the knowledge that he's getting away by going to college in a few months. Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in love finally gives Dade the courage to come out of the closet. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer.

I really like Dade, and I'm glad that there's another realistic LGBT character out there that teens might be able to relate to. There are a couple of fantastic secondary characters as well. However, the plot just felt really choppy to me. Some parts seemed slow, and then all of a sudden a bunch of stuff would happen at once. I wasn't crazy about the ending, either. I thought it was worth reading, but definitely not one I was crazy about.