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War Boy: An Intimate Novel of Friendship, Loss, and Desire in San Francisco
Fleeing an abusive father, fourteen-year-old Radboy takes to the road with Jonnyboy, an older friend and mentor who is the only person Radboy believes he can trust. On the bus headed out of town they hook up with Finn and Critter, a couple of speed-freak boyfriends who take a shine to both of them. They also meet Ula, who is mourning the death of her fiancé and taking a trip across the United States in his memory. The five become fast allies, united by personal loss and by the allure of intimacy only friends in the throes of conflict can understand. When Jonnyboy drops out of sight, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world he has been introduced to inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires.
336 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
3 people are currently reading
330 people want to read
About the author
Kief Hillsbery
5 books8 followersKief Hillsbery is an American writer and Lambda Literary Award nominee.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 28, 2007
Being a queer who listened to punk and lived in San Francisco in the 90s, this book was just too real. We all knew at least one commie fag hag, at least a dozen tweaker queer skinheads, too many raver DJs, several punks who happened to be queer, and lots of teenage runaways on drugs. It seemed like almost every one I knew was an environmentalist; and every one knew who Judi Bari was, who one character seems to have been modeled after.
This is one of the very FEW novels that represents queers outside of the "gay" mainstream, a place where thousands are ignored, and writes about people like me as if we actually exist.
This is one of the very FEW novels that represents queers outside of the "gay" mainstream, a place where thousands are ignored, and writes about people like me as if we actually exist.
January 23, 2010
i made it like a third of the way thru this b4 i looked over at my bookshelvez and was all like, Shock! Horror! this is so not kewl with a k. WTF. as in Why The Fuck. Am i reading this book about tweekerboyz and kweerboyz and a bunch of other xtraneously spelled STOOPID BS like no real plot and trying to act all edgy like vintage Shard-onnay. Appy polly oggies to the giant as in Jolly Green pile of library bookz that look a lot more kewl that are waiting for me like little boyz n grrrlz that i don't even care about. FTS. as in Fuck this Shit.
June 20, 2007
fourteen-year-old queer Deaf skater punk runs away from abusive home, finds true love and blows stuff up. what more could you ask for? this book makes me want to cry and laugh and start fires.
August 26, 2020
I am rereading this after reading it once before as a teenager, soon after it came out. Now I have even more of an appreciation for the extremely campy late-90s time capsule quality of the book. This is kind of a super gay 1990s punk rock reimagined Catcher in the Rye bildungsroman with really strong elements of The Outsiders that I'm surprised nobody else has commented on. This is really a fun read jampacked with countless punk rock inside jokes and 90s pop culture references. I am contractually obligated to enjoy reading a book that has club kids and I got a huge kick out of blast from the past of a kid who works at a dive bar being able to afford his own apartment anywhere in the Bay Area. For those who think the edginess is trying too hard... well dude, the narrator is a teenage boy... that's how it is.
But the narrator's voice comes off as inauthentic. He is Deaf and his first language is ASL, so why doesn't his voice reflect that? Grammatical structure and communication is totally different in ASL than in English. Would a Deaf kid really make so many verbal puns? Also, how come the only other character who speaks ASL is a Swedish woman-- like from actual Sweden, where they don't use American sign language? How on earth would a 1990s kid who listens to Heavens to Betsy and owns a Kill Rock Stars t-shirt not know who Sleater-Kinney is, and why would a Deaf kid have a record label t-shirt at all? These things make no sense and I can't stop noting every time that this doesn't add up.
The final thing that bothers me about this book is the ending. Not only the love interest ... but the troubling subtextual message nestled within the idea that the narrator, who is, again, big-D Deaf, decides his life goal is to be a DJ so he can communicate with hearing people through music. Why? Why does he have to use others' words and creativity to express himself, when throughout the entire book he expresses himself so effectively and creatively? Why would a kid for whom Patti Smith is apparently a totemic figure feel the need to be a DJ, of all things, instead of, like, a poet? Or a writer? Or an artist? Or anything? I feel like there are some tired tropes at work about deaf people at work in this book, and it bothered me the whole way through and deflated some of my enjoyment. Does the author even have any Deaf friends?
But the narrator's voice comes off as inauthentic. He is Deaf and his first language is ASL, so why doesn't his voice reflect that? Grammatical structure and communication is totally different in ASL than in English. Would a Deaf kid really make so many verbal puns? Also, how come the only other character who speaks ASL is a Swedish woman-- like from actual Sweden, where they don't use American sign language? How on earth would a 1990s kid who listens to Heavens to Betsy and owns a Kill Rock Stars t-shirt not know who Sleater-Kinney is, and why would a Deaf kid have a record label t-shirt at all? These things make no sense and I can't stop noting every time that this doesn't add up.
The final thing that bothers me about this book is the ending. Not only the love interest ... but the troubling subtextual message nestled within the idea that the narrator, who is, again, big-D Deaf, decides his life goal is to be a DJ so he can communicate with hearing people through music. Why? Why does he have to use others' words and creativity to express himself, when throughout the entire book he expresses himself so effectively and creatively? Why would a kid for whom Patti Smith is apparently a totemic figure feel the need to be a DJ, of all things, instead of, like, a poet? Or a writer? Or an artist? Or anything? I feel like there are some tired tropes at work about deaf people at work in this book, and it bothered me the whole way through and deflated some of my enjoyment. Does the author even have any Deaf friends?
October 24, 2019
I'll be as sensitive as I can considering it's one star. Didn't care for the writing style, too much of WRITING? Didn't care for the characters, no EMOTIONS. Didn't understand the events much. Extremely hard to manage with although it's only 300+ pages or so. Tried it once, stopped, and tried again, though my opinion didn't change a bit. With all due respects to the heavy themes of disability and drugs and AIDS, wasn't for me. In fact, I wonder if it's for anyone.
July 3, 2023
Crazy and convoluted plot, but the prose crackles with energy.
March 24, 2024
I missed this book when it came out - like I missed so many others but random comments left me intrigued and I bought a copy and then read a few reviews and was afraid I'd made a massive mistake, I was afraid that a novel about a 14 year old deaf mute punk who used words like 'kewl' and was a skateboarder meant that this would be a obsessive fetishized examination of obscure musical references and details of clothing labels and other minutia of alternative/underground lifestyle by an author clinging on to youth and rebelliousness by cataloguing forgotten details and differences which even at the time meant nothing to most people. I am sure if all of us put our mind to it we can come up with many titles that seemed oh so right and then dated in about ten seconds. But 'Warboy' isn't anything like that in fact it is one of the most enjoyable books I have read in a long time. It is a story about a deaf mute 14 year old queer skateboarding boy running away from an abusive father but it is so much more, so very funny, so sharply observed and just a joy to read. I may be late getting to it but it is one of my favorite discoveries.
Although it is not in any sense a YA novel (in terms of how YA authors seem to define the genre - or maybe how marketing departments define the genre) I wish more YA would have books like this made available to them as it is the sort of book any 14 year old could and should read. Having said that don't let it stop any adult from reading this. I can't imagine (despite what other reviewers have posted) that you will regret it.
Although it is not in any sense a YA novel (in terms of how YA authors seem to define the genre - or maybe how marketing departments define the genre) I wish more YA would have books like this made available to them as it is the sort of book any 14 year old could and should read. Having said that don't let it stop any adult from reading this. I can't imagine (despite what other reviewers have posted) that you will regret it.
May 18, 2007
I feel a little guilty only giving this story 3 stars because i actually quite like it. I like the style, the concept, but the environmentalist/anarchist foray seemed like an idea just inserted to add thrill. i just didn't see the point of its inclusion: lost of hope? innocence? drug influence? grasping onto a cause just to have purpose? retribution? for me, it just detracted from the character of radboy and left less time for the other characters, most of whom i still desperately want to know.
February 2, 2015
Gay, deaf teenagers? Meth addicts? What am I getting myself into here?
But taking all of that away, there's a narrative voice unlike almost anything else you've ever read. What if you only experienced the world with four senses instead of five? That voice - and the expert way it's handled - is what makes this novel stand out so well. Almost like "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" shows us how to think like a person with Aspergers, this book lets us readers feel like a person who can't hear.
It's worth it just for that, but succeeds everywhere else too
But taking all of that away, there's a narrative voice unlike almost anything else you've ever read. What if you only experienced the world with four senses instead of five? That voice - and the expert way it's handled - is what makes this novel stand out so well. Almost like "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" shows us how to think like a person with Aspergers, this book lets us readers feel like a person who can't hear.
It's worth it just for that, but succeeds everywhere else too
June 24, 2007
I like this:
Never make decisions based on fear.
Storytellers lie.
Ignore all heroes.
War Boy is the story of a queer boy coming-to-age, living the punk rock lifestyle. It's completely original and overwhelmingly honest. Written in stream-of-consciousness, Radboy and his friends become real in a way a normally structured novel could not accomplish. Although very unique and totally non-traditional, War Boy is written with artistry and craft.
Never make decisions based on fear.
Storytellers lie.
Ignore all heroes.
War Boy is the story of a queer boy coming-to-age, living the punk rock lifestyle. It's completely original and overwhelmingly honest. Written in stream-of-consciousness, Radboy and his friends become real in a way a normally structured novel could not accomplish. Although very unique and totally non-traditional, War Boy is written with artistry and craft.
April 19, 2008
Sadly, despite coming with many several favorable recommendations, I couldn't get past the stream of consciousness writing style, or the "kewl with a K" aspect.
Maybe eventually the story would have captured my attention enough to allow me to overlook these things, but if so, it wasn't happening fast enough.
Maybe eventually the story would have captured my attention enough to allow me to overlook these things, but if so, it wasn't happening fast enough.
June 25, 2008
Kief Hillsbery is one of my favorites, but as much as I love this book (and I've read it a good 5 times or so), I kind of hate the plot. The whole in the woods kidnapping thing has never seemed anything but borderline stupid to me. However, I love the words and the characters and the music you can feel underlying every page, so I keep reading it, and reccommending it to people I like.
December 20, 2007
I want to like this, but I can't...too much bad slang, for one thing. "Kewl" and "kweerboy" and "sk8rboy" and such. It makes me think of a crystal meth riddled text message version of an Avril Levigne song. Ugh. Utterly unsatisfying and not very convincing.
June 3, 2008
Not many books are written from the perspective of someone who is deaf, and this one does it well, especially since the narrator is a teenager living in the punk scene, where most people don't use sign language.
August 25, 2013
Excellent, way underappreciated, the ending was perfect and poetic.
Kief Hillsbery is by far my favorite author, I would read his grocery lists if given the opportunity, and hope he writes many many many more books.
Kief Hillsbery is by far my favorite author, I would read his grocery lists if given the opportunity, and hope he writes many many many more books.
February 11, 2008
I detest books written in precocious "lingo". And the plot was preposterous.
April 2, 2008
This book wasn't worth reading the little bit that I did. Way too much slang...couldn't get into it and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Good think I only spent a dollar on it at a flea market.
Want to read
February 3, 2012I say "Currently reading," but I started this about a year ago and haven't picked it up since then...
April 17, 2012
I really enjoyed this... it was a catcher in the rye meets west coast gay punk sk8ers
looking forward to reading more from this author
looking forward to reading more from this author
April 24, 2014
I've read this one at least 5 times.
February 1, 2008
i fucking LOOOOOOOOOVE this book.
July 21, 2010
Defintiely enjoyed the unique writing style, how real it felt.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews