Is It Wrong To Love Who You Love

Taylor Pierre

Honestley Ben
 By: Bill Konigsberg

Do you think you’re being honest with yourself? Honesty tells people who you are as a person. This is the story of Ben Carver. Ben has trouble being honest, especially with himself. Life for Ben has been going pretty good, he is receiving the Peter Pappas Award, he just became captain of the baseball team, life’s good, or so he thought.

    Ben starts off the book with him and his brother, Luke, having a swimming lesson. Ben is sinking to the bottom of a pool and before he is saved, he is thinking about how he wants to stay at the bottom. Skip to a couple of days, it’s Christmas time. His family is very strict on education, and Ben has a C in one of his class. Ben and his father don’t have a very encouraging relationship, meaning that his father doesn’t really encourage him. His father is very critical. He gives Ben a talking to and leaves Ben’s room. 

    Ben is back in school. We don’t know too much about his school life besides the fact that he is an A+ student and he takes school very seriously. All of a sudden we find out about someone from Ben’s past. Rafe is a mysterious character at the beginning, but as time goes on, we find out that he and Ben had a “thing” for each other last semester. Ben has his mindset that he is “straight” not “gay”. While is working things out Rafe, he meets a girl named Hannah. Over the next couple of weeks, he has worked things out with Rafe and his and Hannah’s relationship has become stronger. How long will that last? I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out. 

    I would recommend this book an audience that likes realistic fiction. This book may be more appropriate for a more mature audience because it does contain a lot of curse words. This book shows that you shouldn’t judge people before getting to know them. It shows how some people have a lot going on. For example, going back to Ben’s father. Ben is scared that he will become like his father. He has a lot of the same traits as his father, one of them is not being able to share his feelings and emotions. This just goes to show that you don’t really know what someone is going through until you learn about the type of person they are. I like the book because I’m in high school and I can relate to trying to find your “group” and I can relate to feeling like I have to be how people see me. Being how people see you instead of how you see yourself can have a big impact on someone. It’s good that this book can address it in a way that stated in a simple but effective way.