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Independence Day
High school student Michael comes to terms with the fact that he is gay, and on July 4th, Independence Day, decides to tell his best friend Todd of his true feelings toward him.
205 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 7, 2024
While this book is very dated and there is a lot of language I do not like. And it is written as if being from a gay males point of view but by a woman, I partially wish I had read this book as a teen. Being a gay youth this book would have made me feel not so different. While I do feel like the book is overly optimistic about being a gay teen in the eighties and how accepting people in your life would be, there are a lot of points that still have relevance to this day. We follow Mike who is just a normal fifteen year old boy who plays soccer has a girlfriend and is sexually active, is a good son and brother and has a lifelong best friend. There is just one thing he happens to be gay. The book is pretty much a year in the life of Mike a pretty ordinary boy going through the motions as he has an internal struggle to be who he really is truthfully. He longs for his best friend Todd while there is no overly homoerotic encounters and nothing explicit in the book there are a couple of scenes where the boys are naked and Mike admires Todd’s body but other than hugs and a few imaginary kisses it’s very g rated. Throughout the book we learn Mike has a lot of gay friendly people on his life while he hasn’t told anyone we learn his fathers best friend is gay and Todd openly states gay people are just like everyone else. Unfortunately Mikes brother says all gays have lisps wear dresses and want to be women (something that’s stated a few times by different people). Mike does slowly tell a few people first his brothers ex who is super accepting and also one of his teachers who finds a poem Mike writ that basically states he’s gay. This teacher is super supportive because his own son is gay and he never got to be the supportive father because his son left soon after coming out. The whole point tog the title is that’s the day Mike tells himself he is going to tell Todd. So the majority of the book is him counting down to that time fearful of rejection. At the end it’s revealed Todd already knew and loves him platonically as his best friend and that will never change. Mikes father also had no problems, and after a while his mother came around after doing research and realizing she loves her son. The only person who I ain’t totally accepting is his brother where they decide to not talk about it. Which happens more than you’d think. While I feel for that time and even into the nineties and two thousands that was not really the case so many young people who came out were cut off from family and friends unfortunately. So while I liked the book it was very lifetime movie for me. The only thing I was taken back by was the amount of time fag or faggot was thrown around. Which as a gay man I hate that word and it brings me to a dark place.
November 25, 2025
I read this book when it came out or maybe the following year. This was the first gay fiction I ever read, though I was a teen when I read it. As far as I know, this was the only book the author ever wrote. I still remember it after all these years.
The story is about a gay teen who plans to come out to his father on July 4. He does so. The teen is in love with his straight best friend. Unlike in m/m romance, the straight friend stays straight. He does accept his friend when he comes out, but there is no sex between them. When he finally comes out, the narrator says, "God doesn't come down." His father accepts him and introduces him to one of his father's friends who is gay.
On the positive side, the novel taught me that coming out was a possibility for me. Although, at the time, I didn't know what exactly to call myself. I now call myself "bisexual," but I don't really fit into any of the standard categories. I'm a heteroromantic bisexual who is demisexual toward women and graysexual toward men. This book was the very first step I took as a queer teen trying to understand himself.
There were things about the book that I did not like. First, there is a pot-smoking scene. Not much of an issue now, but at the time there was the "Just Say No" campaign, and possession could get one locked up for years. The scene wasn't necessary and didn't really contribute much of anything to the plot. This was marketed to teens (it was in my public high school library), so I had issues with that at the time.
The other thing I hated was that it was in present tense. I know that has become quite popular in the last few years, but I, then and now, hate novels written in present tense. So much so that I have a Goodreads shelf for "present tense" for books that come up in my recommendations so that I know not to bother with them. The author kind of made the present thing work, but it grated on my nerves.
The story is about a gay teen who plans to come out to his father on July 4. He does so. The teen is in love with his straight best friend. Unlike in m/m romance, the straight friend stays straight. He does accept his friend when he comes out, but there is no sex between them. When he finally comes out, the narrator says, "God doesn't come down." His father accepts him and introduces him to one of his father's friends who is gay.
On the positive side, the novel taught me that coming out was a possibility for me. Although, at the time, I didn't know what exactly to call myself. I now call myself "bisexual," but I don't really fit into any of the standard categories. I'm a heteroromantic bisexual who is demisexual toward women and graysexual toward men. This book was the very first step I took as a queer teen trying to understand himself.
There were things about the book that I did not like. First, there is a pot-smoking scene. Not much of an issue now, but at the time there was the "Just Say No" campaign, and possession could get one locked up for years. The scene wasn't necessary and didn't really contribute much of anything to the plot. This was marketed to teens (it was in my public high school library), so I had issues with that at the time.
The other thing I hated was that it was in present tense. I know that has become quite popular in the last few years, but I, then and now, hate novels written in present tense. So much so that I have a Goodreads shelf for "present tense" for books that come up in my recommendations so that I know not to bother with them. The author kind of made the present thing work, but it grated on my nerves.
Read
October 7, 2011this gem of a coming out novel, circa 1983, came in a recent batch of highly yellowed book donations. poor todd, a closeted eighties teen condemned to really bad yet funny fiction writing. fortunately, it's nice to know that in 1983 there were books that, however poorly written, still managed to offer hope and reassurance to the gay teens who stumbled upon them in the dark crevices of their library or bookstore. the cover is priceless. you can guess the overseas destination this little diamond is heading to next.
September 4, 2019
Beautiful written but it didn't go the way I would have hoped at all.
August 18, 2014
The story of Mike, a New Jersey Junior in high school, who realizes that his feelings for lifelong best friend Todd go far beyond that of mere friendship. This book is interesting on several levels.
As a YA coming out story published in 1983, the book stands alone. I've not seen nor heard of anything else at this time period which would have directly addressed the thoughts and concerns of a young man (and, in a pinch, young woman) wrestling with an emerging sense of sexuality, wondering about normalcy and trying to decide whether or not to risk coming out to family and friends. Nearly all the points are addressed: What will people think? What will God think? Is this normal? Will I have to start wearing dresses and acting like a woman? Will I be alone? Will I ever find love? Mike asks himself all these questions and more, and eventually starts asking the questions of others (an adult gay friend of his father, his brother's sympathetic girlfriend, a teacher with a gay son, another gay teen at a support group) and many informative, supportive conversations ensue. No one is bashed, no one is disowned, the eventual coming out is well-received and Mike heads off into a secure and positive future. As a queer/questioning teen in 1983, I would have been thrilled to find this book and would have read it 'til the cover fell off.
The second, somewhat less successful is the writing itself, and specifically the YA aspect of the story. These are the oddest, most non-teen teens I've ever encountered in a novel for and about teenagers. Mike, our hero, and Todd, his best friend and secret crush, spend a lot of time-- many conversations in many chapters-- talking about how they can't wait to get married and start families. Indeed, Mike's main sadness about being gay is not that his family and friends might reject him, but that he "can't ever have children", a concern I've never heard voiced by any teenager of any orientation. They do other weird stuff too, like decide to go to the movies and then instead of, say, The Outsiders or Return of the Jedi, they go see the Bette Midler concert film Divine Madness. And it's not even the gay kid that picks the movie! When it's time to go Christmas shopping, Mike buys his brother a First Edition of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', because apparently he has a HUGE allowance and knows just how much his homophobic brother loves Truman Capote?
The info-dump conversations, while useful, are dry and also odd. When Mike's dad takes him to talk to his gay friend Jeff (that's what dad calls him, 'my gay friend Jeff')they have a long talk about how being gay is normal, though it took Jeff a while to come to terms with that. The conversation is creepy and unsettlingly adult.
Jeff: It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I prefer men sexually.
Mike: Do you have a lover?
Jeff: I've had a series of lovers, but no one I've found special enough to stick with.
??? Perhaps I'm being prudish, but the whole thing seemed off. Not that Jeff was molester-y, but just more of the completely un-YA-ness of the whole YA novel.
There is also no mention at all of AIDS, though I found that less jarring. Mostly I was just pleased that the book existed and tried to think of all the young people who might have read this and found hope.
As a YA coming out story published in 1983, the book stands alone. I've not seen nor heard of anything else at this time period which would have directly addressed the thoughts and concerns of a young man (and, in a pinch, young woman) wrestling with an emerging sense of sexuality, wondering about normalcy and trying to decide whether or not to risk coming out to family and friends. Nearly all the points are addressed: What will people think? What will God think? Is this normal? Will I have to start wearing dresses and acting like a woman? Will I be alone? Will I ever find love? Mike asks himself all these questions and more, and eventually starts asking the questions of others (an adult gay friend of his father, his brother's sympathetic girlfriend, a teacher with a gay son, another gay teen at a support group) and many informative, supportive conversations ensue. No one is bashed, no one is disowned, the eventual coming out is well-received and Mike heads off into a secure and positive future. As a queer/questioning teen in 1983, I would have been thrilled to find this book and would have read it 'til the cover fell off.
The second, somewhat less successful is the writing itself, and specifically the YA aspect of the story. These are the oddest, most non-teen teens I've ever encountered in a novel for and about teenagers. Mike, our hero, and Todd, his best friend and secret crush, spend a lot of time-- many conversations in many chapters-- talking about how they can't wait to get married and start families. Indeed, Mike's main sadness about being gay is not that his family and friends might reject him, but that he "can't ever have children", a concern I've never heard voiced by any teenager of any orientation. They do other weird stuff too, like decide to go to the movies and then instead of, say, The Outsiders or Return of the Jedi, they go see the Bette Midler concert film Divine Madness. And it's not even the gay kid that picks the movie! When it's time to go Christmas shopping, Mike buys his brother a First Edition of 'Breakfast at Tiffany's', because apparently he has a HUGE allowance and knows just how much his homophobic brother loves Truman Capote?
The info-dump conversations, while useful, are dry and also odd. When Mike's dad takes him to talk to his gay friend Jeff (that's what dad calls him, 'my gay friend Jeff')they have a long talk about how being gay is normal, though it took Jeff a while to come to terms with that. The conversation is creepy and unsettlingly adult.
Jeff: It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I prefer men sexually.
Mike: Do you have a lover?
Jeff: I've had a series of lovers, but no one I've found special enough to stick with.
??? Perhaps I'm being prudish, but the whole thing seemed off. Not that Jeff was molester-y, but just more of the completely un-YA-ness of the whole YA novel.
There is also no mention at all of AIDS, though I found that less jarring. Mostly I was just pleased that the book existed and tried to think of all the young people who might have read this and found hope.
October 16, 2011
Just re-read this and saw that there weren't many reviews so I thought I'd step up.
This book is a first person account of a young man looking to come out to himself, his family and his friends. Particularly his best friend Todd. The book is earnest and good for the mid 1980's period in which it set. The story doesn't feel all THAT dated except for peoples attitudes towards homosexuality. Reading this again just remined me of how far we've come.
Mike is a teen, the middle of three brothers growing up in a beach town in New Jersey. His older brother is away at college, and his younger brother at six is a precocious but loveable pest. Mike has s steady girlfriend Trish and while they've had sex, Mike has since realized that he's more interested in guys than gals.
The novel does have a bit of that mid 80's Hallmark made for TV movie feel about it and although it's protagonist is a young guy, the book does, in spots, let the feeling that it's author was an older woman show through. The cover has an illustration of two young guys emerging from the ocean and it feels very 80's with the guys looking more like they were modelled on mannequins than on actual models. In some ways the writing reflects that as well. The characters are likeable enough but never quite feel as "real" as the best characters in fiction do.
Also, there are kind of repetitive, hamster on a wheel moments, where Mike agonizes over coming out and how people will react and its all relevant but there are no moments of teenaged hormone driven lust except a few passages where he admires his straight and untouchable best friend. At the crucial Fourth of July, the author included how straight-boy Todd made sure that they were located near the hottest girls on the beach. Our hero, Mike never seems to notice other guys at all.
Still, a good effort for the time and it's actually aged pretty well, feeling much less dated than some of the other fiction of the era that I've recently re-read.
This book is a first person account of a young man looking to come out to himself, his family and his friends. Particularly his best friend Todd. The book is earnest and good for the mid 1980's period in which it set. The story doesn't feel all THAT dated except for peoples attitudes towards homosexuality. Reading this again just remined me of how far we've come.
Mike is a teen, the middle of three brothers growing up in a beach town in New Jersey. His older brother is away at college, and his younger brother at six is a precocious but loveable pest. Mike has s steady girlfriend Trish and while they've had sex, Mike has since realized that he's more interested in guys than gals.
The novel does have a bit of that mid 80's Hallmark made for TV movie feel about it and although it's protagonist is a young guy, the book does, in spots, let the feeling that it's author was an older woman show through. The cover has an illustration of two young guys emerging from the ocean and it feels very 80's with the guys looking more like they were modelled on mannequins than on actual models. In some ways the writing reflects that as well. The characters are likeable enough but never quite feel as "real" as the best characters in fiction do.
Also, there are kind of repetitive, hamster on a wheel moments, where Mike agonizes over coming out and how people will react and its all relevant but there are no moments of teenaged hormone driven lust except a few passages where he admires his straight and untouchable best friend. At the crucial Fourth of July, the author included how straight-boy Todd made sure that they were located near the hottest girls on the beach. Our hero, Mike never seems to notice other guys at all.
Still, a good effort for the time and it's actually aged pretty well, feeling much less dated than some of the other fiction of the era that I've recently re-read.
March 14, 2015
A story of true friendship. Something felt missing, but I can't put my finger on it. We all have had our Todd.
December 30, 2011
A classic coming-of-age and coming-out novel, one that holds up well years after it was written.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews