Annotation
John Gallardi, is your typical teenager who must face life, but with anger and confusion. He meets Marisol, who recently came out as a lesbian, as they build their relationship. A teenage boy who can easily express him through writing, how will he manage to get by with love, intimacy, family, and friendship.
Justification for Nomination
Hard Love took me by surprise. It's an amazing book and it was definitely a great listen.
John struggles to figure out why things were happening the way they are. His father having left them because he rather live the city life than in a small down. John spends the weekends with his father, who rather spend it doing something else than have dinner with him.
John's mother has, since the divorce, no longer come into any physical contact with him and it starts to bother him. She has recently started dating again and feels comfortable with him.
There's Al, John's mother's fiance. I personally loved his character the most. He treats John as he should be, a man. Never really having a good father figure, John starts to question how he really feels about Al. His mother even asks him if he likes him. Al shows care and love towards John, and only hopes that he is able to accept him.
There's Brian, his best friend, who starts dating. John starts to feel like they are two different people.
Then there is Marisol, a recently come out lesbian, who sparks John's attention after reading one of her zines. Once he meets her, a friendship starts to form and they are spending more and more time together. Soon, John feels that he is starting to come into terms with his sexual orientation and feels that he can find love, through Marisol. Having have asked her to prom, he makes the moves on her, thinking that they were both on the same page, but he was wrong.
They both meet again after some time, and goes to a zines conference together. Here, John took an opportunity to write letters to both his parents. He expressed anger and how he really felt. They were how he felt and he wanted to at least express it to them, just in case he doesn't return.
During the conference, John learns that you can't always get what you want, love can be hard, potential can be found when you're not looking and sometimes that's okay.
Hard Love was hard to be convinced to be read. I usually don't take on books when I haven't read reviews or at least have a good understanding of what it was. The cover and title were a bore to me and spark no real interest. It is a great coming of age book where John tries to find himself and understand why things were happening they way they are. Though the beginning was frustrating and hard to get through, because he always felt angered, I was glad I went all the way to the end. Though I did have to think about it, but I absolutely loved it.
I think for me, what really brought this book to my attention was all the zine writings, the poetry and the songs. They have so many meanings. I think this book would be a great read to teens, especially young men who struggles to understand themselves and seem to have a harder time with things that are going on. When they feel that all their friends are moving on faster than they are.
Genre Printz Honor | Coming of Age | Realistic Fiction | GLBT | Romance
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