Title: Freaks and RevelationsAuthor: Davida Wills Hurlin
Publish Date: November 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 234pp
IBSN: 0316049964
Classification: Fiction
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Range: 12 and up
Price: $16.99
Amazon: $12.23
Annotation: Based on a true story, “Freaks and Revelations” follows the lives of two boys, one homeless gay thirteen-year old and the other a seventeen-year old neo-Nazi. When their paths cross, violence ensues.
Summary: Told from the perspectives of Doug and Jason, in alternating chapters. Each boy has a difficult and painful background. Doug’s family is dysfunctional. His parents are racist and unrelenting. At ten years old, Doug’s older brother, Carl, is shot by a black man, which fuels the already racist parents. Then Carl decides to not press charges, aggravating his parents even more. Doug begins drinking and using drugs to get away from everything, especially his preoccupied parents. When he discovers the punk rock scene, he begins to feel connected to something, so much so, that he is pulled into an extreme aspect of the scene, he becomes a skinhead. Jason comes from a dysfunctional family as well. His parents have split up, turning his mother into a stringent religious nut. His uncle was arrested for child pornography, his brother has runaway (and no one seems to care), and he has a crazy grandmother. During a family meeting, Jason decides he wants to be honest, so he tells his family he is gay. His mother decides he is not welcome in their home and packs him a backpack and kicks him out. Not knowing where or what to do, Jason ends up in the Castro, doing anything he can in order to survive. When life there gets too hard he heads to Los Angeles, meets a friend, Coco. Eventually, Jason and Doug encounter one another in an ally behind a restaurant. Doug and his Ne-Nazi friends beat Jason up, leaving him for death. Twenty-five years later, the two meet again in a surprising circumstance that changes both of their lives.
This story is inspired by the real lives of Matthew Boger and Timothy Zaal, who have shared their story on The Oprah Winfrey Show and NPR.
Evaluation: A story of hate, violence, pain, and forgiveness. I felt sympathetic for each boy as the author focuses on each character’s childhood and teenage years, allowing the reader to not only see where they came from but how they came to be. It’s really devastating. The fateful encounter between the boys (when Doug almost beats Jason to death) was extremely hard to read.
Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness:
- Survival.
- Acceptance.
- Being thrown out for being gay.
- Having anger.
- Abusive home life.
- Living in a dysfunctional home.
- Forgiveness.
Reason this book was chosen: The real life story of Matthew Boger and Timothy Zaal (in which this story is based off of) is fascinating and almost seems unreal as Matthew almost took Timothy’s life when they were both very young. The reuniting of the two men at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles is so touching.
Similar Titles:
Author Wikipedia Page: Click HERE
Awards:
ALA Rainbow List, 2010
