Paris April Press, $3.99
Contemporary Fiction, 2021
He is the one that doesn’t do much physical activity as a rule (not fat, though, as blokes of all ages are not allowed to be fat if they wanted to star in a romantic story), gets sunburned easily, and has over-controlling, wealthy parents.
The other bloke is tanned, more physical, outgoing, from a broken family that has all the snobby gossips aghast.
Guess which bloke is going to be sensitive one going all goo-goo eyed over the other bloke. Fortunately, Parker Avrile’s Storm Sky Blues is a high school coming-of-age story—in other words, I never get to read graphic details of the sensitive bloke being cornholed by the other bloke and thus completing all the necessary clichés in gay romantic fiction in order to summon forth Cthulhu from his prison-city of R’lyeh.
On one hand, good, as (a) I don’t need to read about high school blokes shagging as people of high school age tend to be boring and vapid, and (b) we all know chances are high that high school romances will never last past a year anyway. On the other hand, the moment I open this thing, I am immediately told that Gray Easterly and Jamie Pierson will finally touch genitalia in the sequel where they are finally adults, so I am already feeling used when the author and I haven’t even moved to second base yet. That’s not a very good sign, is it?
Oh, and guess which one grows up to be a professor and the other one an athlete.
One thing I have to say about this one: the narrative is gorgeous. Most authors of gay stories have mastered this lovely art of writing their stories as if they were narrating in the sexiest English accent ever, and this author is no different.
Away from the broken front door, he was back in the dark. Didn’t matter. His bare feet told him when he’d reached the dry. He dropped the backpack on the round table of the breakfast nook. Went on into the kitchen. He already knew where the Piersons’s junk lived. Matches, AA batteries, AAA batteries, more of those fingerling sized flashlights, but bigger flashlights too.
These are short, simple sentences, yes and yet, them put together in this manner is a great example of the art of both showing and telling in action. I am told what is taking place here, and at the same time, I can also vividly see, so to speak, the tumultuous feelings the character are experiencing in the head.
Just as impressive is how the author manages to keep her characters speaking and thinking in a way mostly believable for their supposed age. At the same time the author also manages to keep the narrative interesting, even poetically worded at times, to keep someone like me, who tend to get bored with everything teen-related these days, intrigued even to keep reading.
So, you may be thinking, how come I’m not giving this one four oogies?
Well, as I’ve mentioned, this one ticks off almost all the items on the great big shopping list of gay fiction clichés that I supposed I should be grateful that the author still left some items without a tick by the end of this one. Perhaps the author is saving those for the sequel; maybe the great and glorious Cthulhu will finally rise by the end of my reading of that one, and mankind will all expire in bliss upon the coming apocalypse.
I guess I will find out, because I am moved to buy the sequel after reading this thing. So, as far as Storm Sky Blues is concerned, mission accomplished?
