FINISHED:

St. James, James. (2007). Freak show. New York: Dutton/Penguin.

[Billy Bloom is sent to live with his father in rural Florida where he then must attend a conservative private school. The thing is, Billy is a young drag queen with a taste for the outrageous and inventive when it comes to clothing and makeup choices. Right from the first day he's ridiculed, spit at, and eventually becomes the victim of a HORRIBLE attack. He is saved from that beating by, and subsequently befriends, Flip, the hot, high school football star hunk whom he begins to heavily crush on until things get a bit too close for Flip. In the end, Billy decides to run for homecoming queen in an effort to show how everybody should be able to be exactly who they are. I REALLY liked this one. 75+% of the novel is Billy's inner dialogue which is a bunch of hilarious and insightful musings on the life of a gay kid with a taste for the clever and unconventional. At times drop dead funny, horribly brutal, touching (especially the relationships with his mother and father), romantic and swooning, and just plain bizarre, this one likely has a limited appeal, but those who "get it" will find it truly fabulous.]

STARTED:
Juster, Norton. (1961). The phantom tollbooth. New York: Dell Yearling/Random House.

[It was time to read a classic, and, shamefully, this is one that I've never read before. Recently saw the animated adaptation of his picture book The Dot & the Line and LOVED it (actually, I'm sure that I've seen it before... maybe in middle school math class??).]

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