Date me Bryson Keller by Kevin van Whye
Penguin, 2020. ISBN: 9780241435267.
(Age: 14+) Highly recommended. What starts off as a seemingly
lightweight story about a silly school dare turns into a moving
description of a teenager's gradual development into a trusted and
accepting gay relationship - a first time boyfriend-boyfriend
experience. It all starts when Bryson Keller, the handsome school
soccer star who scorns high school romances, is challenged in a dare
to date the first person to ask him out each week, for 3 months, and
if his heart is won he gives up driving his expensive white Jeep to
school and has to ride the school bus. The narrator, Kai Sheridan,
is a boy who has learnt to hide his sexuality from even his closest
friends following an early hurtful experience, but in an angry
spontaneous moment he challenges Bryson to 'date me'. Bryson is
known for being decent and fair-minded, and he takes up the
invitation. At first it is just a friendship with a shared school
project and shared music interests, but gradually as they get to
know each other better their friendship deepens into something more
meaningful.
This is a lovely story that reminded me of Clementine
and Rudy by Siobhan Curham, a story of a friendship and
art collaboration between two teenage girls from very different
backgrounds. Clementine and Rudy is not a LGBTQI+ story but
there is the same positive message about being non-judgemental and
open to friendship with someone different. And like Curham, van Whye
describes young people who are kind and sincere. Both Bryson and Kai
struggle with changing family relationships, but each is supported
by a sister who understands them, as well as good friends, and the
overall message is as the author says 'that, despite those trials
and tribulations, there is hope, that we have worth and deserve to
be happy'.
I can highly recommend this novel to teenage readers, regardless of
their sexuality, for its positive messages about identity,
friendship and acceptance.
Themes: LGBTQI+, Identity, Friendship, Romance.
Helen Eddy