Best LGBT Young Adult / Coming of Age: The Zero Knot by K.Z. Snow

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Unexpected story. Maybe for the author, maybe for the publisher, I was expecting it to be more pretty, more kinky, less intense. And as usual, when you surprise me it’s totally a positive thing.

Even if The Zero Knot is about young adults on the upper side of teenagehood, it’s not really about sex or similar, and more about discovery and first love. Jess is one of the cool kids, he hangs around with other kids, pretending to be pansexual, i.e. goofing around with other kids and putting on the troubled kid show. And maybe he would have even some reason to be, his parents divorced, his mother left him to his dad, his older brother in the army during wartime… but after all, Jess is a good kid, his father is a good man, and even his estranged mother is not so bad after all. Jess’s biggest problem is that, while it’s easy to pretend being a cool kid, it’s not so easy to be true to himself and admit he is gay, and that he is starting to feel something important for his friend Dylan.

On the other side Dylan, the quite kid, the silent one, has real trouble going on: still at home, and with no prospect to going to college at the end of the summer like Jess, he cannot admit to his uber conservative parents he is gay, or he will find himself on the streets. Plus his unrequited love interest, Jess, will soon leave for another city and broader horizons. No sense dragging him down to his small town existence.

Of course life doesn’t listen to teenagers, and it has its own plans. There is a little bit of drama, there is a whole lot of tenderness, and two kids that, after all, are more lucky than many others; life maybe is putting some obstacles on their path, but nothing so huge they cannot face with little effort. And then a brighter future is awaiting them.

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2566

Amazon: The Zero Knot
Amazon Kindle: The Zero Knot
Paperback: 222 pages
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (October 14, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613722044
ISBN-13: 978-1613722046



Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle


Cover Art by Anne Cain

Comments

[elena-62.livejournal.com]

K.Z. Snow is a very talented writer and I loved ''The Zero Knot''. Thank you for reviewing!

Ciao

Antonella

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

for me it was unexpected, less "cute" and more "committed". Good YA according to me.