Whether you've dated, mated, or just plain slept around, if you're a gay man looking to hook up, you've probably had your share of boy trouble. Was he passive aggressive, a withholder, stalker, or snippy vegan? The one-night stand you thought you'd never escape, the date you couldn't flee fast enough? They may be Hell to live through, but they make for riveting post mortems. Here twenty gay writers have the last word in this collection of sexy, funny, scary, heartbreaking and delightfully vengeful accounts of adventures at the deep end of the dating pool.
Will you find Mr. Right? Or Mr. Still-Lives-With-His-Mother? In Night of a Thousand Boyfriends, you’re going to have dinner with a man you’ve never met. It could be the perfect blind date—but the road to romance is fraught with danger: torn stockings, obnoxious roommates, maxed-out ATM cards, adulterous husbands, and worse. Can you surmount these obstacles and find true love? Or will you be alone in bed, remote control in hand, by 9:30? It all depends on the choices YOU make. If you suggest that things are moving a little too fast, turn to page 88. If you insist that Brian run to the drug store for protection, turn to page 67. If you throw caution to the wind and unfasten his belt, turn to page 58. What happens next? That depends on YOU! How does the story end? Only YOU can find out! Best of all, you can read this book again and again until you’ve had 24 amazing adventures!
Winner of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize. One of Buzzfeed's Best LGBTQ+ Books of 2021, NBC's 10 Most Notable LGBTQ Books of 2021, and Pink News' Best LGBTQ Books of 2021. "This hurricane of delirious, lonely, lewd tales is a taxonomy and grand unified theory of the boyfriend, in every tense." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "I loved this book—raunchy, irreverent, deliberate, sexy, angry, and tender, in its own way." —Roxane Gay An irrerverent, sensitive, and inimitable look at gay dysfunction through the eyes of a cult hero Transgressive, foulmouthed, and brutally funny, Brontez Purnell’s 100 Boyfriends is a revelatory spiral into the imperfect lives of queer men desperately fighting the urge to self-sabotage. As they tiptoe through minefields of romantic, substance-fueled misadventure—from dirty warehouses and gentrified bars in Oakland to desolate farm towns in Alabama—Purnell’s characters strive for belonging in a world that dismisses them for being Black, broke, and queer. In spite of it—or perhaps because of it—they shine. Armed with a deadpan wit, Purnell finds humor in even the darkest of nadirs with the peerless zeal, insight, and horniness of a gay punk messiah. Together, the slice-of-life tales that writhe within 100 Boyfriends are an inimitable tour of an unexposed queer underbelly. Holding them together is the vision of an iconoclastic storyteller, as fearless as he is human.
Right up until they put him in jail, McKenzie thought the cops were kidding. After all, he did them a favor by stopping a rookie cop from roughing up a distraught woman at a murder scene. But the next thing Mac knows he's in jail, missing an important date with his girlfriend and reliving nightmares he thought he'd finally left behind – and he's vowing payback for all of it. If that means sticking his nose into a crime investigation, well, he's done it before. Only, what appears to be a straightforward case of a cheating boyfriend, his alcoholic girlfriend and an opportune baseball bat proves far more complicated than the police are willing to accept. More disconcerting, as he investigates, Mac finds himself again fighting the influence of a shadowy figure who controls more of what goes on in the Twin Cities than a rational voter would believe. And then there are the unidentified thugs who kill a witness and rough up him and his female lawyer-ally. Soon Mac realizes that the truth of this sordid crime may be as hard to find – and as hard to live with – as the justice he seeks.
In this original, historical ghost story set in 1918, the year of the deadly Spanish influenza, 16-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to sances and spirit photographers for comfort. Mary's never believed in ghosts, until her first loveNa boy who died in battleNreturns.
Boyfriend From Hell or Perfect Angel? Your days of dating liars, cheaters, and total scumbags are over! Here are identifying characteristics for more than 70 potential boyfriends, along with advice about who to keep and who to kick to the curb. Find out if your guy is: • Married with Children • A Cult Leader • A Player • An Extraterrestrial • Actually Twins • And Dozens More! Includes a handy index of personality traits so you can quickly decipher the hidden meaning of all your boyfriend’s behaviors.
First boyfriends, first love, first mistakes-and an invitation to the hottest teen society party of the year send three friends into a tailspin. Can they handle the pressure of getting everything they think they want? Santana Jackson is one of the flyest chicks in her Atlanta 'hood. At least until her golddigger mother snags a pro baller, and they move to the other side of the tracks. Worse, Santana's boyfriend has made a move, too-on her rival. Now Santana's obsessed with winning him back in time to shine-until she unexpectedly finds herself falling for a brainy nerd. . . Dynasty Young has learned about life the hard way, thanks to her drug-addicted mother and MIA father. Then she meets City, a boy with as much money-making potential as swagger-and who could be her ticket to a better life. But when he stands her up, Dynasty realizes that sometimes true love is right next door. . . Patience Blackman is going to hell. Just ask her father, the famous Bishop Blackman. Torn between what's good for her and what feels good, Patience just wants to have fun-and a hot date for the party-until she stumbles upon a gorgeous churchboy who has her rethinking her bad girl ways. . . "An amazing tale that is sure to delight, teach, and intrigue teens everywhere!" -Ni-Ni Simone, author of Upgrade U
Attempting to lessen the impact of their failed marriage by conducting a successful divorce, the well-intentioned parents of a teenage boy fail to anticipate the effect of their unrealistic expectations on their son's psyche.
Fourteen-year-old Prue and her sister Grace have been educated at home by their controlling, super-strict father all their lives. Forced to wear Mum's odd hand-made garments and forbidden from reading teenage magazines, they know they're very different to 'normal' girls - but when Dad has a stroke and ends up in hospital, unable to move or speak, Prue suddenly discovers what it's like to have a little freedom. Sent to a real school for the first time, Prue struggles to fit in. The only person she can talk to is her kindly, young - and handsome - art teacher, Rax. They quickly bond, and Prue feels more and more drawn to him. As her feelings grow stronger, she begins to realise that he might feel the same way about her. But nothing could ever happen between them - could it?
