Set in 1994 in the United Kingdom, Boy Like Me by Simon James Green tells the story of high school junior Jamie Hampton who grew up in a time when thoughts of cuddling a same sex partner were considered a perversion. In fact, from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales, Section 28 made homosexuality a crime. At sixteen years old, Jamie is dealing with issues of identity and self-discovery. Although he wants to be unique, Jamie is a straight-A student, a writer, an organizer, and somewhat of a book nerd. Better to fly under the radar and fit in than to be the focus of someone’s narrow-minded assumptions, so he pretends.
While in the library one day, Librarian Mrs. Carpenter gives Jamie a book. The front cover says Wildflowers of Great Britain, but the book isn’t about botany. It tells the story of two boys who share a special friendship. Jamie notices that someone else has also read the book and made margin notes. Intrigued, Jamie decides to write back. When the mystery writer responds, the two develop a relationship—one based on a shared understanding. Unsure if he likes the idea of a boy-meets-boy romance or terrified by it, Jamie decides he wants to meet his pen pal in person. So, his detective work begins, and his imagination takes the lead. Jamie has no idea that “what felt easy and beautiful in fiction was scary and ugly in real life” (102).
Green writes his novel with cues like a screenplay and sprinkles it with occasional footnotes that resemble asides. As the story rolls forward and the identity of the margin writer becomes known, the two young men explore one another and come to learn that a person can love the idea of something but not the reality and that “other people’s expectations crush us all a little bit” (105). So, the hiding begins. But hiding is not only lonely but hard work. Besides, neither boy has anything to be ashamed of.
In Green’s own admission, this is a story of “loss and pain and hardship and difficulty, of being hated and despised, and yet [it is also a story] of strength and power and fighting spirit and, ultimately, love” (311). True to life, Green reveals that “one of the hardest and rudest wake-up calls you get growing up, is the moment it dawns on you that there isn’t always someone there with the answers. That life is fundamentally unfair, the world is full of villains, and, very often, they don’t get their comeuppance” (170). However, readers also realize that “there can be beauty on the other side of terror” (244).
Along the way, Green is an artist with allusion, referring to the likes of Julian Clarey and Fred Rogers. He also alludes to books like Catcher in the Rye and Wuthering Heights, as well as to several musicians.
Another style trait is Green’s talent to use words with both a literal and a figurative meaning. That trait shows up in descriptions like his novel being “a love story that begins in the margins.”
Green additionally pays tribute to librarians, commending Mrs. Carpenter for “protecting two students who haven’t done anything wrong” (148) and for subverting those in power by making books available to students despite Section 28. After all, “the world is full of people who want power and control. But they have to use fear and ignorance to get it, because nobody in their right mind would support them otherwise. . . . See, people like us? We’re a threat to the power hoarders, Jamie. Give too many free thinkers a voice, and the whole pack of cards comes crashing down. And too many powerful people have skin in the game to let that happen” (149-151).
Mrs. C is defined as a helper, and Green encourages us all to be people who care, people willing to do the work to make the world a better place, people who fight for justice and speak truth to power. These are people with dignity, people who stand up to those who mock, hate, and complicate life. The song “Dignity” by Deacon Blue provides a tribute to those who practice ally behavior and provide a sanctuary in the grim storm called life.
Boy Like Me is also about history repeating itself because humans don’t give history the credit it deserves for teaching us to navigate more wisely in order to avoid past mistakes. Green inspires readers to ponder how, despite this being a different place and a different time, we’re still dealing with the same brand of ignorance and bigotry today.
- Donna