“The Extraordinaries”

[Trigger warning: grief, loss, death of parent.]

[Spoiler alert: some details about the book “The Extraordinaries” by TJ Klune.]

Last night I finished reading the young adult fiction book “The Extraordinaries” by TJ Klune. 

I devoured it. 

I’ve been feeling a little uncomfortable and even judgmental with myself for the way I’ve been not just reading but actually devouring young adult fiction books recently. 

Usually, I’m a slow, methodical reader. But with these books (three books from the “Greenglass House” series by Kate Milford; “The house in the cerulean sea” & “The Extraordinaries” by TJ Klune), I just cannot put them down, cannot set them aside, as I stay up into wee hours plowing through the pages and even skipping ahead to try and find passages that I enjoy more (like conflict resolution and/or romantic moments) and then go back to. 

It’s almost like I’m trying to live vicariously through these stories, especially through the ones by TJ Klune since they involve many queer characters in the main roles. 

Is there something unhealthy and/or concerning about my reading these books and craving these stories like this? 

Or am I, rather, doing some healthy and necessary self-therapy (e.g. reparenting/refathering and/or “re-teenaging” for myself)? 

Last summer, when I sustained those two huge, extremely painful losses, especially when my father died, my housemate (who is a friend of mine and also an experienced & professional psychotherapist) suggested that I pick some happy-ending young-adult fiction books to read, to help myself in my grieving process, to do some “refathering” and/or “re-teenaging” for myself. At the time, though, I wasn’t able to do it. But maybe the time has come and I’m doing it now…? Now, a year later, a year after those painful losses. And also now in a period of my life when somehow I’m trying to find my own way of being a gay boy, my own way of growing into a transguy, my own version of masculinity, my own flavor of queer. 

Maybe that is exactly what I am doing by reading these books, devouring these stories: I am “refathering” and “re-teenaging” myself. I am giving myself the opportunity to live, even if only vicariously and only for a shorter amount of time (months vs. years), puberty in the way I would have wanted it and couldn’t have it.   

In the book “The Extraordinaries”, in particular, the aspects & topics that pull at the strings of my heart are mainly two: the love story between the two queer teenage boys who have been best (platonic) friends for a decade; the difficult but loving and close relationship between the main character (gay boy) & his father. These are both topics that are extremely dear to my heart, especially because I feel I didn’t have these experiences that I would have wanted in real life when I was a teenager.  

While the relationship with my father is “lost and gone forever”, something I didn’t have and will never have, these books can remind me of some of the things that I did have, at least partially. Like the friendship & love story with my sailing buddy who was also my first serious boyfriend, my first “true love”. We met in the summer of 2000, when I was 18 & a half and he was 16. We liked each other instantaneously and had a summer fling but we also built a solid friendship (which lasts to this day). We were kids, both of us, and we loved each other with the intensity of teenagers, and particularly of teenagers who are misfits among their peers and have troubled households/absent parents. We were friends, sailing buddies, lovers, and in some ways even brothers. He’s straight and would definitely not have felt physically attracted to me if I hadn’t looked like a pretty girl two decades ago — that’s a true fact. But it’s also true that he never treated me like a girl. We played like boys together — our play encompassing many aspects, from sailing, to dancing, to sex. Even though I looked like a girl and he was attracted to me because of my female body, it never felt misgendering to me because we always acted like two boys who loved each other. The way we were there for each other, the way we loved each other, the ways in which we interacted were in many aspects similar to the relationship between Nick & Seth in “The Extraordinaries”. So maybe even if I didn’t have exactly what I would have wanted, because I wasn’t allowed to be (or wasn’t even fully aware of being) my gay-boy-self, I did have some experiences as a teenager & young adult that filled my heart & soul in similar ways…

So maybe these books will help fill that hole in my heart and then I’ll finally be able to live with my grief without being overwhelmed or hardened or dried out by it? And then maybe I’ll finally be able to be the adult that I’d like to be, an adult who is capable of loving (romantically) & being loved (romantically) unconditionally?