Review: Enlightened by JP Barnaby

This YA story, the first book in the Little Boy Lost series, centres around 16 year old Brian who has recently come to the realisation that not only is he gay but that he's in love with his best friend Jamie.  Brian finds this knowledge very disturbing and frightening.  Firstly because he lives in the bible belt south of the USA and Jamie's family are strict southern Baptists; secondly, he's a foster child and he's worried that if his foster parents find out that he's gay, they'll toss him out back to social services; and thirdly, Jamie is the only friend he's ever had and he doesn't want to lose that friendship.  So immediately we are thrown into what is a very uncomfortable and difficult situation for Brian.  He can't help his hormones and his body's response to Jamie, but he fears rejection at every turn.  Fortunately for Brian, Jamie also has feelings for him which leads to several beautiful and tender scenes as they feel their way into this new side to their relationship.  Unfortunately, it also means that they have to be doubly careful about their friendship so that no-one suspects that they are in love.

In some senses this was quite a bleak book.  It deals openly with all the troubles that a young gay man, who is stuck in the closet, has to contend with whilst living in a small Southern town.  Thus there are many parts that I found sad and dispiriting.  For example, Jamie starts seeing a 'girlfriend' so that people won't be suspicious of his and Brian's relationship which makes Brian upset and jealous.  This also has repercussions later in the story.  Whilst I understood why Jamie felt the need to do this, I felt sorry for both the girl and for Brian and felt that Jamie, despite his protestations of loving Brian only, enjoyed having both Brian and his girlfriend.  I also felt all of Brian's frustration at having to hide his feelings for Jamie, as well as his fear of the repercussions should they be discovered.  Because the story is taken from Brian's first person point of view, it's difficult to get a deep understanding of Jamie's feelings for him.  I was uneasy at times - mainly because of the girlfriend - that Brian's love for Jamie was stronger than Jamie's love for Brian.  This is something I shall look out for with interest as the series continues.

Brian is a very sympathetic narrator.  He's a real innocent, whose small town upbringing means that he knows very little about sex, or about being gay - even the internet isn't a big part of his life, leading to an embarrassing scene later in the book.  His worries and fears are entirely plausible, his jealous feelings and frustration show his inexperience.  He spends much of the book riding a haze of hormonal emotions as he veers between the bright hopefulness of young love and the despair that comes with bruised feelings.  He clings optimistically to the knowledge that in just over a year both he and Jamie will be 18 and then they can please themselves, go anywhere and live freely.  This optimism was charming, but part of me knew this was just naivety and that life isn't as clear cut as that.  Brian's complexity, his range of feelings, was just delightful and by far the best part of this book.

Another aspect which worked quite well in the book was the balance of viewpoints shown.  Whilst Jamie's Mum is a strict Christian, his Dad doesn't hold such conservative views.  Brian's foster parents are shown to be liberal and sympathetic, but the other teens are vociferous in their hatred of gays.  Another thing that interested me, and is something I'd never really considered before, was the way that Brian is looked down on because he is a foster child.  That somehow losing his parents and having to be cared for in the system makes him a second class citizen.  This social snobbery was prevalent throughout the book and is Brian's main worry about coming out to his foster parents - not just that he will be rejected by them, but also that the small minded townsfolk would reject his foster parents because of their association with him.  The social stigma associated with being gay, and the way that it affects all the characters was a compelling theme in the book and made me really think, perhaps for the first time, about that side of being gay.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed this book.  The themes are, as I said, a little bleak and I would class this more as a romantic drama, as the ending is nowhere near a HEA or even a HFN.  However the beauty and complexity of Brian; the raw emotion; and the sympathetic look at two young men struggling with their sexuality in a town of closed-minded people, made this an engrossing read and one that I won't forget in a hurry.  I am greatly looking forward to reading the next book in the series, which I think is due out soon.  In the meantime if you like YA books, if you want to read a book which shows the genuine difficulties faced by gay teenagers, I urge you to read this book which gets a grade of 'Excellent'.

Buy this book HERE.