Honestly Ben by Bill Konigsberg (review)

Taciturn, stolid Ben’s unexpectedly sexual attraction to his best friend, Rafe, has left him confused and, after Rafe admits that he’s gay, beset with feelings of anger and betrayal (Openly Straight, BCCB 7/13). Now the boys are starting a new year at their boarding school, and when Ben meets a smart and sexy girl, he feels confident that he can resume a just-friends relationship with Rafe, but his attraction to Hannah doesn’t preclude him from feeling jealous of Rafe’s new boyfriend. While Ben remains an engaging character, this sequel is too often a vehicle for Konigsberg to communicate overt lessons on how to be a progressive male in contemporary society. The narrator muses on how he should respond to crude jokes, team hazing, cheating, white and male privilege; how to understand and support people who are genderfluid; the ethics of sexual experimentation; and whether you can be straight except for a fierce attraction to one boy. In the process, the book seems to overlook how shabbily he treats Hannah (although she is allowed to express her anger) and how controlling Rafe and his family are as they try to convince Ben that he is in denial of the fact that he really is gay (although he is allowed to insist that he is only “gay-for-Rafe”), all of which calls into question the adverb in the title. Nonetheless, readers who appreciated Ben’s struggles in the previous book will certainly have a lot of chew on here.