Books for Writers: If I Told You So

    Let me predicate this by saying it's been many years since I was a teenager, so I'm likely lacking clear memories of the operatic nature of the age — epic highs and apple-bottomed lows, soaring heights followed by days sitting in a corner writing dark poetry. Even as you watch everyone else to puzzle out the right way to be, it feels like all the eyes are on you: judging harshly. It ain't over until the fat lady sings, and she tends to be a no-show until the early 20s (often later these days).
     If I Told You So is the story of a plucky lad in such a state. His name is Sean Jackson and he, to borrow a phrase from David Sedaris, likes guys. This would be hard enough in a Romney-Santorum America, but Sean has the additional misfortune of growing up in a small town where the only out "alternative lifestyle" he knows about belongs to the Fabulous Renee, owner of the local ice-cream shop. Threatened with a summer of landscaping with his estranged father, Sean gets a job at the ice-cream shop where he meets a new best friend and encounters something that feels a lot like love courtesy of his hunky (and a couple of years older) manager Jay.