Love Drugged by James Klise

2010/304pgs.

About the Book: Jamie knows he's gay, but he doesn't know how friends and family will react to his news. He's nervous about being different and wants to be "normal." When an attractive girl takes notice in Jamie, Jamie decides to try and date her. He becomes especially interested when he discovers that Celia's father is developing a drug that will suppress Jamie's his attraction to boys. So when Jamie has the chance to still some pills, he decides to take advantage of it and see if he can change.

Sarah Teenlibrarian Says: I really wanted to like this book. It was a Stonewall honor book this year and the premise sounded intriguing. And while there were good moments, overall I felt the book was another typical coming of age story.

We know about the pills early on, but then we spend around the first 100 pages getting to know Jamie, setting up his relationship with Celia before the pills are even introduced. And then when they are, they're still more a backstory than anything else. Mostly this is a book about Jamie trying to date Celia and it not working. The book picks up close to the end, but by that point, I had spent too long waiting for something more exciting or interesting to happen. The end is wrapped up very quickly as well which was very frustrating.

We're given a lot of extra details about characters that weren't really needed which bogged the book down. The book is told from Jamie's point of view and at times he's a hard narrator to stick with. He's very self-conscious and he often second guesses himself and worries a lot.

I did like parts of it and I thought the overall idea was good. The book also never feels overly preachy about "be who you are" and instead is more of Jamie's journey to that discovery, so I think teens will appreciate that it's not overly message-filled. I just found it a bit long and I wanted it to be more interesting. But if you have teens that will stick with it, I think Love Drugged could make a great book discussion title.