Review: Raw and complex
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 10, 2012
There are literally hundreds of stories and novels exploring the struggles of gay youth. They range from the teen YA style to the more hardcore discussions of street life. The problem with those that I've read is that they do not capture the "real" essence of gay kids. The "street life" stories in particular seem to always focus on the embattled struggles of teen prostitutes, drugs, and other sordid details. They don't seem to capture the innocent descent and not-quite rise from the ashes truth.Kody Boye's novel, The Diary of Dakota Hammell, is one of the few to achieve a sense of realness behind the fiction. Dakota's story is like many others. A runaway living on the streets, he's brutally assaulted one night. A mysterious man "saves" him and encourages him to write a diary. This diary is supposed to help him travel through the darkness into the light. But does it? The ending leaves us wondering just what Dakota really learned through it all. What will his life really look like post-John?This story is not a feel-good after schools special. Nor is it a bleak litany of hopelessness. Like real life, it treads a middle ground without giving us pat, simple answers. We are left with challenging questions about salvation, evolution of the soul, and transformations. A definite must-read.