Honestly Ben

This was nice, but I still loved Rafe's POV a lot more since it made me want to write with all the fast-writing. What is up with the freaking fictional families? Like, damn it! It's your own kid, accept him as a person and let him live his life man!

AWESOME!
When I first heard that this book would be set in Ben's pov, I was a little disappointed. But, turns out I've enjoyed it way more than the first one! And with an ultra plus: this is one of the most quotable books ever!
Ben is constant thinking about quotes from books and poems that he's read, and is always producing original ones too! Some marvelous that speak a lot about today's world, and that's a great achievement.
I could'nt have been happier about this book, one of my all time favorites, for sure.

La suite de “Openly Straight”, tout aussi sympathique que le premier volet. On suit cette fois la vie de Ben, l'ami de Rafe. Une lecture plaisante.

Since I had such a lengthy review for “Openly Straight” I'll try to keep my review for the sequel relatively short. First, the good stuff:

-Ben. He's so much more likable than Rafe- by a long shot.

-The problematic theme of internalized homophobia is pretty much gone, although there have been some concern and debates about bi-invisibility but the author has addressed this in a length blog post on his website.

-The Peter Pappas subplot. I liked the fact that Ben was so curious about who this young man was and why the award was being given in his name.

-Ben doesn't take anything for granted

The not-so-good: **Some spoilers below**

-Rafe. He's still awful, selfish, privileged and unworthy of Ben.

-Hannah, or rather her and Ben's relationship. She was basically a casualty of Ben's uncertain feelings about Rafe, in the worst possible way, to the point where I would have rather her had a platonic relationship with Ben or not in the story at all. What was done with her character was probably my main dislike about this book, they met, she was used, then she was dropped about half way through the book, when Ben couldn't deny his feelings for Rafe any longer.

-Ben's relationship with is homophobic teammates. Seemed like for the most part Ben was giving them a pass on their homophobia just because they're teammates. When Ben would say something about their comments, a few mins later they would be friends again like nothing happened. It was confusing and didn't really have a resolution.

-I would have like to know more about Ben's home life mainly, his brother and mom. Reading the synopsis you would think that his mom would have played a bigger part in the story, I guess it is possible the author is saving that for a 3rd book since this one did have an open-ending with unanswered questions.

Overall this was definitely an improvement over it's predecessor mostly for the simple fact that this is Ben's perspective of life. He is insecure and inquisitive yet loyal and humble, unlike Rafe and we actually saw growth in Ben's character, also unlike Rafe. If not for the poor treatment of the Hannah character this would have gotten a higher score from me but overall I think it was a goodread and a unique perspective of sexuality.

P.S. The narrator's performance of this audiobook was great with no complaints from me.