How they met, and other stories

Review by Booklist Review

Wonderfully depicted characters (mostly teenagers) dance, fumble, fly, and talk their way into romance. In settings ranging from classrooms and blind dates to an airline flight, a Bar Mitzvah, and a few bedrooms, the stories focus largely on affection and love, with a few instances of sexual activity. Many of the main characters are gay or lesbian, but there are straight characters, too, as well as a few whose sexual orientation is still forming. Among the stories is one Levithan wrote in high school, which, like the others here, is nicely written, witty, and quick to read. An impressive collection by a single author, this will pair well with Am I Blue? (1994), edited by Marion Dane Bauer.--Goldsmith, Francisca Copyright 2007 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

With entries dating back to Levithan's (Boy Meets Boy) student years, this diverse collection gathers 18 stories about love: gay, straight, young, old, inspiring, silly, heartrending-one is even written in a mix of verse and song lyrics. In "Breaking and Entering," Peter misses his ex-boyfriend, now away at college, so he sneaks into his house and falls asleep in his bed, while in "Flirting with Waiters," a 12-year-old girl falls for an older pizza boy, saying, "It was enough for me to have Seth come to my house in his own car and say `the usual' with a smile." Even the early entries showcase his trademark love of wordplay (in "A Romantic Inclination," written when the author was a high school junior, physics students James and Sallie decide not to pursue each other because "the friction of a merging of their hearts wouldn't be beneficial. It would be theoretically and realistically wrong." They demonstrate, too, his love of fantasy: in the story he wrote in his last year of high school, the somewhat jejune "Memory Dance," elderly Mary literally flashes back to when love was new. Throughout, the author quickly brings his characters to life, and he explores concepts that will resonate with teens, such as the randomness of love ("Person after person after person... they all converge at one moment, irrevocably changing the course of a thousand more lives. As it is with accidents, so it is with love"). Sweet, sometimes bittersweet, these stories will leave readers satisfied. Ages 14-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-These 18 short stories are about love-from unrequited, to longing, to being smitten, to family love and friendship. Levithan leaves no form untouched, and tells each tale passionately. This collection contains stories with such poignancy, brilliance, and warmth that anyone who has ever been in love (or wished they were) will enjoy them. In one selection, a teen awkwardly waits in line to catch the eye of a handsome Starbucks barista behind the counter. In another, Lucy learns what it is like to feel a broken heart, but comes out an independent, self-sufficient young woman. A Chinese-American girl is fixed up by her parents with the son of a Chinese business partner; two stories later, a gay boy tries to figure out the difference between lust and love. The portrayal of these teenagers' feelings across different sexual orientations and races is at once believable and accurate. An excellent choice for fans of Levithan's Boy Meets Boy (2003), Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (2006, both Knopf), and Francesca Lia Block's Necklace of Kisses (HarperCollins, 2005).-Marie C. Hansen, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

Levithan writes about gay, lesbian, and straight couples in this collection of eighteen stories about love. From Ian's college interview with his closeted boyfriend's father to the girl whose mom thinks "all lesbians talked like Hillary Clinton and looked like Bill," each meticulously worded story conveys both weary cynicism and the romantic yearning of love intensified by the uncertainties of young adulthood. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Levithan, a YA author and children's-book editor, created 12 of the 14 stories collected here as Valentine's Day presents to family and friends. Fittingly, each is a story about love--between brothers, between man and wife, two boys, two girls or one of each. In "Skipping Prom," Kelly and her boyfriend do just what the title implies and lie in a field telling each other what they think is happening at the Prom, all the while feeling the weight of the certainty that their relationship is coming to an end. In "Alumni Interview," Ian must sit for a college-entrance interview with the father of his closeted boyfriend. No one leaves the room unscathed. Some, like the title story, are about how lovers meet, and others, like "Miss Lucy Had a Steamboat," are about painful but necessary breakups. Teens and older young adults will find themselves here and likely learn a little about that many-splendored emotion. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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STARBUCKS BOY It was my aunt who pimped me out. We had this arrangement: I would get to live with her for a few weeks over the summer and take a pre-college course at Columbia before my senior year. In return, I wouldn't have to do a thing besides stay out of the way. It sounded like a good plan to me, except that when I got to Columbia on the first day of summer classes, I found that my course had been dropped. Apparently, there'd been a notice that nobody in my family had bothered to notice. I thought Aunt Celia would be mad. Or at least concerned. But instead she said, "Well, this could actually solve Elise's problem." Elise was a friend of Aunt Celia's who lived in the same apartment building. She had a six-year-old daughter. "I'm sure you're wonderful with children," Aunt Celia told me. This was an especially strange statement coming from Aunt Celia, who (as far as I could tell) considered the continued existence of children to be something akin to a plague. We have a picture we love to look at in my immediate family, taken right after my brother, Jonathan, was born. It's Aunt Celia's turn to hold him, and from the look on her face and the positioning of her body, you'd think that someone had asked her to cradle a ten-pound turd. Nothing personal against Jonathan--I'm sure she was the same with me. As Jonathan and I grew up, Aunt Celia always gave us presents to "save for later." For my seventh birthday I received a pair of Tiffany candlesticks. For my eighth, it was a matching finger bowl. I freaked out, thinking a finger bowl was meant to hold fingers. (Aunt Celia left the room so my parents could explain.) When I turned thirteen, Aunt Celia actually seemed relieved. She finally stopped maintaining any pretense of treating me like a child, and started treating me like a lesser form of adult instead. "Aren't you?" she now prompted. "Wonderful? With children?" I didn't know where we were going with this, but I was sure that If I had no reason to stay in New York, Aunt Celia would ship me back to suburbia faster than she could dial out for dinner. Even if I found a way to avoid being underfoot, she would be unnerved by the concept of me being underfoot. "I'm wonderful with children," I assured her. Various instances of me "babysitting" Jonathan flashed through my head--we hadn't been allowed to have pets, so I'd often encouraged him to act like one. I thought it best not to mention the particulars of my sitting experience, which, at its most extreme, stopped just short of accidental lobotomy. "Perfect," she said. Then she picked up her cell phone off the front table, speed-dialed, and told the person on the other end, "Elise, it's Celia. I have a solution for the whole Astrid affair. My nephew . . . yes, Gabriel. The one I was telling you about . . . escaping my sister, yes. Well, it seems that his course has been canceled. And I happen to know he's wonderful with children. A complete charmer . . . Yes, he's entirely free. . . . I'm sure those hours would be fine. . . . He's delighted. . . . You'll see him then. . . . Yes, it's quite a loaded potato . . . . Absolutely my pleasure!" She hung up and looked at me like I'd just been checked off a list. "It's all set," she said. "Although you'll have to dress nicer than that." "What's all set?" I asked. If I couldn't do it in a T-shirt, I was worried. "Why, your job. For the next three weeks." "Which is . . . ?" I coaxed. She sighed. "To take care of Elise's daughter, Arabella. You'll love her. She's wonderful." No follow-up questions were possible. With an air kiss and a trail of perfume, Aunt Celia was off. I started the next morning at eight. My class was supposed to have started at ten, and I'd looked forward to the extra hours of sleep. Instead, Aunt Celia came into my room at seven-fifteen, turned on the lights, released a low-octaved "Be ready by eight," and left before I could see her without the compensations of makeup. Even after I cured my early-morning dayblindness with two cups of coffee and a shower prolonged by ten minutes of tangential thinking, I still wasn't fully awake when I rang the doorbell of apartment 8C. I looked presentable enough in my button-down shirt and khakis, but my mind felt buttoned-down and khaki as well. I was already starting to resent my new job. Aunt Celia's friend Elise was three-quarters out the door when she opened it for me. "You must be Gabriel," she said. "I've heard so much about you. Come in." Elise was one of those women who exercised so often that she was starting to look like a piece of exercise equipment herself. She walked around the apartment as if she were still on a treadmill, telling me about emergency numbers and people to call and when to expect her back. "I really appreciate you doing this," she said, putting on her jacket and leading me down a hallway. "Arabella's back here." Arabella's door was decorated with a framed copy of the unicorn tapestry from The Cloisters. Elise knocked three quick raps into the door, then opened it for me. I was astounded, but not particularly surprised, by the room that was revealed to me. It was everything you might expect from a fairly rich New York City girl named Arabella. It was designed like a Vogue version of Disney, with a four-poster bed and no-poster walls. Pink was the dominant color, with blue and green playing the major supporting roles. My attention was caught by a number of wide-eyed dolls relegated to size-order rows on a magisterial display shelf, as if they were about to take a class picture and had dressed for the occasion. This was the room I had never dreamed about as a little boy, and still feared now. Excerpted from How They Met, and Other Stories by David Levithan All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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