holmesstorybooks's review against another edition
3.5
a breeze to read but read a bit like young adult (which makes sense) but i don't love YA so. <3
rpenzias's review
5.0
This is one of the greatest books I've read with a gay protagonist, and one of the most compelling biographies I have ever read. I particularly loved the way that White was able to weave together the various pieces of his life into one fascinating, clear story with a strong message. This is an excellent work, and I would highly recommend it.
lucyblack's review against another edition
2.0
I just found it really rambly and yuck. I’m fine with sex and teenage angst but all the characters including the protagonist were so unlikeable. Slabs of flesh, cigar smoke, dirty snow, pimples.
robinhoodreads's review against another edition
A Boy's Own Story is part one of Edmund White's autobiographical trilogy. Hauntingly beautiful, this novel shares a raw honesty of a young boy's coming of age. The characters are eccentric but real, and written with a shade of nostalgia. White writes about his relationship with his father to his earliest sexual encounters to trying to cure his homosexuality. And the way our narrator retreats into his imagination is a trait I can completely relate to. I did the same thing when I was a queer teen. A wonderful read and truly shows what an important author White is.
juannaranjo's review against another edition
3.0
‘Historia de un chico’ es una novela que constituye una auténtica institución en la historia de la literatura gay estadounidense: que por fin haya sido traducida al castellano es un auténtico motivo de celebración y una excusa perfecta para acercarse fácilmente a la literatura de Edmund White, uno de los autores más transgresores y prolíficos de la literatura gay desde los años 70. Aunque tiene absoluta autonomía y se puede disfrutar perfectamente como un volumen único, este libro es el primero de una trilogía de autoficción en la que White mezcla muchísimos elementos de su propia vida con otros puramente novelados para narrar las dificultades de un chico gay de familia privilegiada en la América profunda de los años 50 y 60.
Como muchas otras novelas de crecimiento, ‘Historia de un chico’ es un testimonio emocionante y, en algunos capítulos, bastante doloroso. Al narrar la adolescencia del protagonista, el autodescubrimiento y la propia negación se intercalan en una sociedad en la que su identidad era un lastre del que sentía que tenía que liberarse de cualquier manera.
Edmund White imparte en esta novela una auténtica clase de escritura y demuestra una inteligencia, una chispa y un uso de la lengua que le emparenta en primera línea de consanguinidad con otros grandes nombres de la historia de la literatura gay. Sin embargo, en mi humilde opinión, la novela tiene luces y sombras: mientras que la primera mitad es bastante brillante, la segunda se vuelve más rocambolesca y demasiado desordenada. Además, creo que lo de la autoficción se le va a veces demasiado de las manos y otorga al joven protagonista unas vivencias que creo que son extremadamente poco verosímiles. Aunque el texto, de 1982, ha envejecido bien, pienso que está un poco descompensado: en algunos episodios pasa demasiado de puntillas y en otros se enreda hasta la extenuación. Pero, aun con estas circunstancias que me han despegado un poco del absoluto entusiasmo que me despertó al principio, me ha parecido una lectura muy interesante que me alegro de haber hecho.
Como muchas otras novelas de crecimiento, ‘Historia de un chico’ es un testimonio emocionante y, en algunos capítulos, bastante doloroso. Al narrar la adolescencia del protagonista, el autodescubrimiento y la propia negación se intercalan en una sociedad en la que su identidad era un lastre del que sentía que tenía que liberarse de cualquier manera.
Edmund White imparte en esta novela una auténtica clase de escritura y demuestra una inteligencia, una chispa y un uso de la lengua que le emparenta en primera línea de consanguinidad con otros grandes nombres de la historia de la literatura gay. Sin embargo, en mi humilde opinión, la novela tiene luces y sombras: mientras que la primera mitad es bastante brillante, la segunda se vuelve más rocambolesca y demasiado desordenada. Además, creo que lo de la autoficción se le va a veces demasiado de las manos y otorga al joven protagonista unas vivencias que creo que son extremadamente poco verosímiles. Aunque el texto, de 1982, ha envejecido bien, pienso que está un poco descompensado: en algunos episodios pasa demasiado de puntillas y en otros se enreda hasta la extenuación. Pero, aun con estas circunstancias que me han despegado un poco del absoluto entusiasmo que me despertó al principio, me ha parecido una lectura muy interesante que me alegro de haber hecho.
neiljung78's review against another edition
funny
reflective
4.0
I loved reading bits of this aloud to myself in my empty flat.
barrypierce's review against another edition
3.0
On the back of my disappointment with Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You I went to Twitter and meditated on the state of the gay novel. My friend Conrad said I should try out Edmund White. So I did.
A Boy’s Own Story (1982) is a novel about a gay teen’s coming of age in 1950s America. White holds nothing back. Within the first 20 pages we are already reading about our narrator’s rendezvous with a younger boy, Kevin. Kevin is 12 and our narrator is 15 but Kevin already knows the ropes when it comes to ‘cornholing’. These first couple of pages act as an admonition to the reader, you can hear White tapping at his keys, ‘I am not going to hold back’. The unabashed portrayal of teenage sexuality is so wonderfully refreshing. This novel is far more than just sex however.
Our narrator faces genuine struggles. Throughout the novel he chastises himself for being homosexual. At times he wishes he wasn’t. His father sends him to boarding school in order to straighten him out (pun intended). His life is a series of unfulfilling encounters and perpetual self-hate. The novel rejects the conventional bildungsroman narrative. We jump around the narrator’s life because that seems to be the only thing that he’s able to control, us. In her original review for the NYT, Catherine Stimpson described A Boy’s Own Life as The Catcher in the Rye meets Wilde’s De Profundis. It’s a fair comparison but White recedes into depths that Salinger could only dream about.
While I will admit that the novel can get boring in some parts I overall really admired A Boy’s Own Life. It acts as a reminder to me that for every middling book you read there’s always a great one to counteract it. I will most definitely be continuing on with Edmund White’s oeuvre.
A Boy’s Own Story (1982) is a novel about a gay teen’s coming of age in 1950s America. White holds nothing back. Within the first 20 pages we are already reading about our narrator’s rendezvous with a younger boy, Kevin. Kevin is 12 and our narrator is 15 but Kevin already knows the ropes when it comes to ‘cornholing’. These first couple of pages act as an admonition to the reader, you can hear White tapping at his keys, ‘I am not going to hold back’. The unabashed portrayal of teenage sexuality is so wonderfully refreshing. This novel is far more than just sex however.
Our narrator faces genuine struggles. Throughout the novel he chastises himself for being homosexual. At times he wishes he wasn’t. His father sends him to boarding school in order to straighten him out (pun intended). His life is a series of unfulfilling encounters and perpetual self-hate. The novel rejects the conventional bildungsroman narrative. We jump around the narrator’s life because that seems to be the only thing that he’s able to control, us. In her original review for the NYT, Catherine Stimpson described A Boy’s Own Life as The Catcher in the Rye meets Wilde’s De Profundis. It’s a fair comparison but White recedes into depths that Salinger could only dream about.
While I will admit that the novel can get boring in some parts I overall really admired A Boy’s Own Life. It acts as a reminder to me that for every middling book you read there’s always a great one to counteract it. I will most definitely be continuing on with Edmund White’s oeuvre.