A.J. Brandiosa isn’t close to anyone like he is to Tulsa. When A.J. and Tulsa both make the Triple A hockey team, everything seems perfect. Until A.J. learns a secret Tulsa wasn’t ready to share: that he’s gay.
Despite being twenty years old, Wieler’s Bad Boy remains thoughtful and fresh. When A.J. uncovers Tulsa’s secret, the familiar narrative of the underdog sports team is complicated by questions of sexual identity. Much to her credit, Wieler writes a very human novel with complex characters. Neither A.J. or Tulsa fit flat, jock stereotypes and Wieler works very hard to get inside their heads. While most of the story is third-person omniscient narrated by A.J., occasional scenes are narrated by Tulsa. This sets up competing protagonists whose actions and reactions govern the steady pace of the book. The real success of Bad Boy is the exploration of this relationship, focusing on how A.J. and Tulsa adjust to change. To do this, Wieler doesn’t shy away from ugly issues (particularly homophobia and violence) that stem from the discussion of Tulsa’s sexuality. At first, A.J. is angry at Tulsa and tries to ignore his behavior, thinking Tulsa is just playing around like when he experimented with drugs. Later A.J. is embarrassed, worried that people might find out and transfer negative associations onto him. On the ice, A.J. is violent, expending his emotions through brute force. While this dialogue is uncomfortable (if not offensive) it works up to the real subtext: Tulsa’s revelation makes A.J. question his own sexuality. There’s a surprisingly mature scene (I don’t mean adult content) where A.J. tells Tulsa he loves him and asks how he knew he was gay. While, like author David Levithan, I think it’s unfortunate that LGBT books rarely exist without discussions of self-hatred, I appreciate that Bad Boy throws itself into asking (and answering) provocative questions: how does our sexuality define us, how does it define our relationship to others, can sexuality be negative, should sexuality be negative, and how do we embrace differences?
My major criticism of Wieler is that her writing is sometimes gendered. As a female author penning male characters, she seems to try too hard to be gender authentic and she ends up stereotyping. In one scene, A.J. is eyeing a girl and describes her butt as a “pert, upside-down heart” (7). Beyond the stupidity of this comparison, it doesn’t read in character. It sounds like something Wieler imagines a teen boy might say, not something that I believe from A.J. A second criticism is that I felt uncomfortable at Wieler’s quick dismissal of a scene of date violence. At one point A.J. gets carried away making out with a girl named Summer despite her clear vocalization that she wants to stop. Later in the book, Summer forgives A.J. with little to no consequences. I wished for more resolution here.