Girl in Pieces
Kathleen Glasgow
Both books explore Young Adult Fiction
Two Boys Kissing
A tender, formally unusual YA novel that turns a publicity stunt into a study of queer teenage love, shaped by the memory of the gay men lost to AIDS who narrate it.
What It's About
Two Boys Kissing is a novel told through a loose chorus of gay men who died of AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s, speaking from a place outside time about what they missed and what they hope the living will carry forward. Their commentary frames the story of Harry and Craig, two seventeen-year-olds who agree to take part in a marathon kissing session meant to set a Guinness World Record. The premise is public and a little absurd, and the book leans into the tension between spectacle and intimacy: two people's most private act becomes something a crowd can watch.
Around the central pair, Levithan follows other teenagers in the same community, each working through their own questions about love, identity, and where they belong. The narrative moves in short sections and shifting voices, so the reader assembles the larger picture the way a crowd gathers around a single event. The prose is spare and conversational, with plenty of white space, which suits a young adult audience and makes the book quick to read.
The experience is more emotional than plot-driven. Expect to think about how much has changed for queer young people and how much was lost to get here, and expect a few passages to land hard. It rewards a slow, attentive read, and it works well in one or two sittings.
Read this if you…
- want a YA novel that handles queer history and present-day teen life together
- like experimental structure, with multiple voices and short sections
- are interested in how communities remember people lost to the AIDS crisis
Skip it if you…
- want a fast plot with a clear central conflict and resolution
- prefer detailed, long-form character development for every supporting figure
Key Ideas
- 1
The chorus as a living memory
The narrating men are a deliberate reminder that the freedoms today's teenagers take for granted were built on people who never got to see them. Their voices make history feel personal rather than like a lesson, and they turn the book's present-day scenes into something closer to an inheritance.
- 2
Public spectacle versus private feeling
A world record attempt turns a kiss into a performance with judges, timers, and onlookers. The book asks what it means for intimacy to be watched, and whether being seen can be a form of pride, a form of pressure, or both at once.
- 3
Ripple effects across a community
Other students react to the attempt in different ways, some supportive and some hostile, and each reaction reveals something about the person having it. The kiss works as a mirror that shows the friends, classmates, and families around the central pair.
- 4
Queer love treated as ordinary
Much of the book is not about coming out or crisis but about everyday longing, nerves, and hope. Levithan presents gay teenagers' romantic lives as unremarkable in the best sense, deserving the same warmth and ordinariness as anyone else's.
- 5
Endurance as a metaphor
The physical strain of a long marathon of kissing, with dehydration and exhaustion, becomes a quiet image of holding on through pressure. Readers can take the endurance theme as a comment on the wider struggle of living openly.
Limitations
The chorus voice can feel heavy-handed at times, and some readers find the historical framing more insistent than the teen story it surrounds. The Guinness premise is intentionally thin, so readers looking for a grounded sports or record-setting narrative will be disappointed. Supporting characters can blur together because the book moves quickly between many voices. As a YA novel, it offers less psychological depth than adult fiction on similar themes, and its emotional effects depend heavily on how much the reader connects with the chorus.
Questions Readers Ask
- Is Two Boys Kissing suitable for adult readers or only teens?
- Yes. It is written for young adults but its structure and its historical perspective appeal strongly to older readers. Adults who remember the AIDS era will likely find the chorus sections especially affecting. Because the prose is short and direct, it can be read in a single evening, though many readers choose to slow down and reread certain passages.
- How does it compare to Levithan's Every Day?
- Both are short, accessible YA novels with an interest in identity and love, but they differ in approach. Every Day follows one unusual narrator through a single ongoing premise, while Two Boys Kissing uses many voices and a historical chorus. Readers who liked the inventive premise of Every Day may enjoy this book's experimental structure, though it is more overtly about community and memory.
- Published
- 2015
- ISBN
- 9780307931917
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Category
- Young Adult
Book details and cover from Google Books.
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