SuitabookFlamer
Mike Curato
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside the teenager, pausing before and after the most distressing sections. Name the difference between depicting cruelty and endorsing it, and agree whom to approach if the suicide material feels personal.
- Themes
- Identity and self-acceptance: Aiden has a crush on a male friend and struggles with shame about possibly being gay amid hostile messages from school, religion and peers. The story presents self-loathing as connected to surrounding rejection, while its fire imagery and later support leave room for hope.
- Bullying, prejudice and belonging: School and camp peers repeatedly mock Aiden’s identity, race, body and manner, while he values scouting and has some friendships. Cruelty is depicted as damaging and isolating rather than as a justified response; friendship provides a contrasting possibility of belonging.
- Faith, authority and harm: Aiden fears religious condemnation and experiences Catholic and scouting messages as telling him that being gay is wrong. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Worth knowing
- Expect repeated homophobic, racist, sexual and body-shaming insults, discussions of masturbation, religious trauma, family distress and suicidal ideation. The story includes a same-sex crush and rejection, while its ending offers support rather than a complete resolution.