{"id":3712,"date":"2014-06-27T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=3712"},"modified":"2020-07-11T07:31:52","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T12:31:52","slug":"one-man-guy-by-michael-barakiva-book-review-gay-teen-comes-out-of-his-shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=3712","title":{"rendered":"One Man Guy, by Michael Barakiva (book review) – gay teen comes out of his shell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bookSummer school – ugh.
\nStuffed grape leaves – yum!
\nHearing Rufus Wainwright<\/a> live at Central Park – yay!
\nFalling in love for the first time – ahhhhh!!!<\/p>\n

Ask for One Man Guy<\/em> today at your local library<\/a> or independent bookstore<\/a>, and enjoy Alek’s breakout summer and the glow of first love. (Armenian hospitality also includes the Khederian family recipe for Stuffed Grape Leaves at the end of the book).<\/p>\n

Have you ever taken a big leap away from how people perceived you?
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/strong>: One Man Guy \/ Michael Barakiva. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2014.  [author site<\/a>]  [publisher site<\/a>]  [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n

My book talk<\/strong>: The tedium of summer school gives way to joy as Alek meets skateboarder Ethan who takes the Armenian-American teen under his wing and into his heart – the consequences of their adventures, however…<\/p>\n

In summer school to raise his math grade from a B+,  Alek has to miss family vacation, but can’t miss the cute upperclassman who’d rather skateboard than study.<\/p>\n

Ethan gleefully convinces by-the-rules Alek to skip algebra and attend a Rufus Wainwright concert in Central Park. At 14, Alek realizes for the first time that he’s probably gay, which explains why his best pal Becky is the only girl he cares to be around (her love of rollerblading and old movies notwithstanding).<\/p>\n

As Alek and Ethan grow closer, exploring NYC together instead of going to English class, watching classic movies with Becky, and just hanging out, life is wonderful – until his parents and big brother get home early from vacation with their Armenian church group.<\/p>\n

If the Khederian family would only stop reminiscing about the post-WWI Armenian holocaust<\/a> and critiquing food long enough to accept that Alek won’t be a perfect student… He’s ready to become his own person, a good and faithful person, a One Man Guy<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer school – ugh. Stuffed grape leaves – yum! Hearing Rufus Wainwright live at Central Park – yay! Falling in love for the first time – ahhhhh!!! Ask for One Man Guy today at your local library or independent bookstore, and enjoy Alek’s breakout summer and the glow of first love. (Armenian hospitality also includes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[22,7,202,75,11,20,5,37,18,40,44,46,43,187,39,49,86,213,186,193,15,9,21,73,35,3,6,8,59],"class_list":["post-3712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","tag-behavior","tag-beliefs","tag-blogathon2014","tag-brothers","tag-communication","tag-conflict","tag-coping","tag-death","tag-family","tag-fathers","tag-friendship","tag-funny","tag-growing-up","tag-lgbtq","tag-love","tag-memories","tag-music","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-prejudice","tag-relationships","tag-school","tag-self-image","tag-summer","tag-surprises","tag-teens","tag-travel","tag-us-author","tag-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3712"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11557,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3712\/revisions\/11557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}