reviews_and_ramblings | Becoming Us by Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

The story is about young men almost out of college, so I think, 20-21 years old, maybe more, but truth be told, the feeling is more of a story of younger men, they are so innocent and scared of the big bad world outside, or at least one of them is.

Perry, Zac and Bryce were roommates and best-friends. With other two students from the same Swim College Team, they rented an house for their sophomore year and everything seemed perfect till the day Zac and Perry made coming out during an interview for the College newspaper. From that moment on Bryce changed, and Perry and Zac did common front against him. But now Perry is out of college and Bryce and Zac are again alone, and maybe Zac is missing his best friend. So he finds the courage to face Bryce and asks him reasons on his past behaviour, but instead of the angry and homophobic man, he finds a scared child. Bryce is scared since he would have liked to be with Perry and Zac on that journal, he would have liked to have the courage to face his family, his father and brothers, and tell them that he is gay. Since Bryce was only a teenager, his relatives always threatened him of cutting him off the family if he ended to be gay. In the novel it’s not said, but probably Bryce was giving out some signs of his tendencies, since I can’t believe a family can say something like that out of the blue; and if it was like that, it served them right that in the end Bryce is really gay.

Actually, for how I read him, Bryce is more bisexual than gay, he has no problem to be with girls, but he has fallen in love with a guy, Zac. His reaction to Perry and Zac’s coming out, was not only due to the fear to be “forced” to do the same, sooner or later, but also from the realization that Perry and Zac had something in common that they were hiding from him, there was a bond between Perry and Zac that was deeper than any other bonds he could have with Zac. I think that, in a way, Bryce was jealous, and also scared to remain alone in the closet, that suddenly seemed darker than before.

When I said that the story is more about boys than men, it’s since I feel that Bryce is not yet fully developed as man. He has still a lot of trouble in seeing himself as an independent man, and he is still too bonded to his father’s recognition. He is still in that phase when pleasing your parents it’s your main purpose in life, he is still more a child, a son, than a man, a lover. Zac is maybe a little more grown up, but all in all, he is not much “older” than Bryce. In the end they are lucky that they are not living in a situation that could be really troubling for both of them, they are not really putting in danger all their lives, they will have maybe to finally fully front face their parents, but they have alternatives, they can take the risk.

The story, in the end, is more sweet than angst, and it’s more about the development of the sexual relationship between Zac and Bryce, than their emotional development; at the end of the story, Bryce has maybe gathered a bit of courage, but he is far from being emotionally independent. And Zac is still in that stage when he wants to please Bryce, he wants to make things easy for him, even if it means to put aside his own desires; this is not a situation that can last forever, sooner or later Zac will have to take his life in hand, and make clear his needs, both in life than in bed. For now, both of them are still wrapped up in the pink bubble of romance: there are a lot of “I love you”s, “I want you”s and being together is important like breathing… a proof more that, all in all, Zac and Bryce are young and in love, maybe for the first time.

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Amazon: Becoming Us

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