Skater Boy

Badass, loser, punk, slacker, deadbeat: take your pick. Wes Mackenzie, age 17 and on the verge of flunking out of his senior year, is seriously down on himself, with a bitingly negative view of life and school. It doesn’t help that his father was a wife-beater from whom he and his mother had to run, nor that his two best friends care only about scoring girls and alcohol. And it definitely doesn’t help that he’s in-the-closet gay and terrified of being outed.

Stonebridge High’s social hierarchy typecast me as a punk the second I moved to town. Whether I like it or not, I have an image to uphold… No one wants to mess with the angry redhead in the black leather jacket and faded skate shoes.

Wes cares about only three things: his hard-working single mother (a delightfully wise and kickass character), skateboarding and photography.

Then he gets a crush on Tristan, a ballet dancer who attends a nearby private school and seems to believe Wes has it in him to turn his grades around, pursue photography studies, and move to New York City after graduation – with Tristan.

Wes, lacking the self-confidence to believe his luck, is dumbstruck. The two begin a rocky relationship that is never going to work if Wes can’t come to terms with his identity, lift himself out of his self-destructive behaviour, and come out to his mother as well as to his “loser” friends. This is where the novel shines. We feel Wes’s angst, pain, and fear in every nerve ending; we come to understand the trauma in his life that keeps him locked up, and the love for his mother than makes him terrified of her rejecting him. The author goes incredibly deep in his ability to serve all that up, and the drama makes an invaluable read for those who don’t understand what closeted gay classmates may be going through. It occurred to me as I savored the good writing, excellent pacing, and outstanding exploration of character, that this novel should be required reading for high school teachers and guidance counsellors, as well as for students who care about fellow human beings.

Written in first person from Wes’s point of view, Skater Boy is a contemporary, moving read. The dialogue is crisp and realistic, the pace never sags, and the language is appropriate for older teens. But this is no mere coming-out story. It’s an account of a boy who is poor, hurting, and skidding toward disaster -- and just happens to be conflicted about being gay. His anger and fear push people away, and his inability to deal with emotions or conversations about his inner life are typical teen terrain. No one needs to be gay to relate to this story. Nor can a mere romance lift Wes up on its own.

Tristan: “I know what it feels like to build up walls to protect yourself. But it’s never too late to be a good person.”

Wes: “I did some pretty messed-up things to a lot of people… Maybe I wanted attention. Or for someone to tell me what I’ve always felt I’ve known in my heart: that I don’t deserve to be loved.”

And yet, that fear of coming out is something the reader will soon become immersed in.

I’ve never actually said the words out loud to another person… If I shared my truth with [Tristan] now, it would make it all the more final somehow... He makes me feel alive. And more importantly… he makes me feel seen.

Dating Tristan while hiding it from his friends leads Wes down a road where his two worlds are sure to collide. They do, spectacularly, but when it turns out that one of his “tough” buddies is also gay and struggling with it, and the other is more or less quick to accept both as they are, the reader has to wonder how realistic that is. Never mind that the dialogue and Wes’s inner thoughts then turn warm-and-fuzzy, also an abrupt change from earlier in the book. Yes, that could be called character arc, but it seems a little sudden and drastic, sort of over-the-rainbow.

Wes: “I’m so tired of being someone I’m not.”

Wes’s mother: “Maybe finding yourself means meeting somewhere in the middle of who you were and who you want to be.”

Wes: The Tripod [his three friends] was never good at talking about our feelings before, but the guys are looking over at me now with such concern I can’t believe it took us this long to open up. There’s a real stigma around men sharing their emotions, and we became a walking endorsement of that. Brad took up drinking to cope, I let my anger get the best of me. Because ‘boys will be boys,’ isn’t that what we’re taught? But that’s the problem. Saying shit like that doesn’t teach us anything. It only gives permission for inexcusable behavior.

It's a small criticism, as is the over-the-top, happy-happy ending, ribbons and bows all neatly tied. Still, after all they’ve been through, they deserve a happy ending, so let’s forgive these small weaknesses and say that overall, it’s one great novel, for everyone to read.