Luke's Book Reviews #4: Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Out of all the LGBT fiction books out there, bisexuality really hasn't made much of an appearance. From my perspective, half of the LGBT books have been focused on gay couples, 1/4 on lesbians, and 1/4 on the others, bisexual and transgender characters included. Don't get me right, I will be all over gay romance YA books in a heartbeat (and yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that), but there's always more room for diversity, you know?

When I first read the synopsis for Cut Both Ways, I immediately hit the TBR button on Goodreads. I mean, I rarely see bisexuality in any of the books I read, and from the way the synopsis sounded, this sounded like a perfect self-discovery book for someone my age to read.

I've had my own confusions about my sexuality, and sometimes I turn to books to see how authors write their own characters in situations like my imagination. So, without much further thought, I put Cut Both Ways on hold at my library and waited patiently for it to come in. Once I got it, I was already flipping through the pages.

Now comes the difficult part. How was Cut Both Ways? Was it a moving book that was written well and had a character that I could like? Or was it the exact opposite of what I wanted?

I have no idea how to describe this book coherently, and that's not because I liked it. In fact, it's quite the opposite. This book made me incredibly mad.

I feel cheated, especially because the synopsis sounded like this book would be a winner. Instead, all I have here to review is a joke of a book where I'm still waiting for a punchline, and frankly, I don't think there'll be one.

Let's get this synopsis started by introducing our protagonist, Will Caynes. He's had a horrible, horrible life. His parents divorced when he was nine, and now he's been going between houses and having to spend time with himself in two different beds (oh, how awful!). One particular night, he's at his mom's house and going to stay there for the weekend. He decides to go and hang out with Angus (his BFF) and they do the normal teenage things (because smoking marijuana and drinking stolen wine in water bottles is definitely something teenagers do in public in broad daylight, right?) before stopping at a park and going a little crazy (hey, there are no kids around, so why not?).

For some reason, Will decides to reminisce on his horrible love life right then and there (you do that when you're drunk).

'I'm seventeen and I've never even kissed a girl. I never do anything cool. I'm shit at girls. I don't have any money. I wear glasses. I'm boring. In between. I've liked plenty of girls but they've never liked me back. It's kind of horrible. But kind of reasonable too. Because the girls I like are always completely unaware of my liking them. I never tell anyone, not even my friends, when I like a girl. And I never talk or interact with her, either, if I like her. It's complete top-secret classified information when I like someone.' (pg. 15)

Well, no wonder you're crap with girls, Will. You haven't told any of them you like them.

And then all of a sudden, Angus is kissing Will, and for some reason, Will likes it, even though he swears to himself that he's not gay (don't worry, this won't be the last time you hear this). So, he tells Angus in his drunken state that he doesn't swing that way (multiple times) and, later that week, starts making out with a sophomore girl named Brandy, and they eventually become boyfriend and girlfriend.

However, something's fishy with Will. He may love Brandy and have feelings for her, but he also keeps on doing stuff with Angus on the side (yay, cheating!). Does that mean he's gay? Is he actually straight? Or could he love both genders (this isn't even mentioned, so scratch that)? What's a horny teenage boy to do?

Let me start off by getting the first problem of this book out of the way: Will himself. I don't think I've ever met this unlikable of a male narrator in a long time. First off, there's clearly parts where you can tell that it's obviously a girl penning his narrative voice. Why? Because the novel is overly vulgar and drops about 10 f-bombs per chapter. I know Mesrobian was trying to make Will sound authentic (and I do know some people at my school who love to cuss), but he comes across as more obnoxious and immature than how a natural 17 year old should sound like.

Another problem with Will is that he feels disconnected from everything. His narration is completely flat most of the time, and he doesn't really have an emotive voice. What's funny is that a character in the book mentions something along the lines of him being like this, and it got a big chuckle out of me.

'"I don't even believe you," [Brandy] says. "You say things, but there's no truth behind them. You don't mean it; you sound like you're totally over it."' (pg. 184-185)

If this wasn't completely true to the book, this wouldn't have been funny, but alas, may the laughs ring.

The last (and biggest) problem with Will is that he becomes fixated on the idea that he's gay whenever he's with Angus. Throughout the novel, there's signs that Will is bisexual, as he's attracted to both Brandy and Angus (however, there's an exception with the other guys that pop up in this novel and in Will's head). Despite this, he rants constantly in internal monologues about how he isn't gay, and he constantly fixates on the idea of everything gay.

'Normally, when dudes sing...I think they sound like freaks. Like, the definition of gay is right there, when a guy's belting it out. Young guys always sound a little girly, even though they don't want to, and it's all terrible. Embarrassing. But not Angus. He sounds like a guy. Like a man. But also, you can hear the parts where his voice breaks, and it's not gay. It's not embarrassing. It's just him. ...right that minute, I know I love Angus. That I'm in love with him and I'll always love him. I'm as gay as any gay choir boy. As gay as any theater kid. Gay. And holding my girlfriend's hand.' (pg. 193-194)

Every time the word "gay" is used in this book, it sounds like a swear word, almost as if being gay is a bad thing, which I find absolutely appalling. It's not bad to be gay, and I don't need to be hearing about this from Will in multiple passages throughout the book. Seriously, just stop.

Carrie Mesrobian herself stated in the author's note that Will represented "bisexual erasure", which basically means that there are some people out there who absolutely refuse to believe they could possibly be attracted to both genders. If done well, I think this topic would have been interesting, but in Cut Both Ways, it was beaten to death and became incredibly annoying.

But let's move away from Will and talk about the rest of the problems of this book, which all center around one aspect: the writing and the handling of sexuality. In her author's note, Mesrobian says this:

'I don't know what Will's identity is. Even if I did know, I think it's more interesting for a reader to contemplate what he is and what he might be than for me to label him with certainty. What I do know is that we need to work for a world where it is easier for kids like him.' (pg. 242)

You may have noticed that I made the text bold on that last sentence. I did that for a reason. Throughout this book, I suffered through Will's bland narration, constant worrying about him being gay, and him constantly being a jerk to his parents, friends, one of his half-sisters, and partners, and left the ending completely unresolved (yes, there's an open ending, kids) just to get the message that WE NEED TO MAKE THE WORLD BETTER FOR PEOPLE LIKE HIM?

If we made the world better for people who behaved exactly like Will, World War III would be in our history textbooks. However, that's not the only reason why that last sentence made me mad. It has to do with the fact that I found it absolutely insensitive to the LGBT community, and getting to that author's note was hard.

The writing, in my opinion, isn't good in the slightest. Like I said before, Will's narrative voice is flat and as interesting as a blank piece of paper, and the prose doesn't do anything in the slightest to give this a hand. Instead, it's full of choppy sentences and lacks any emotive resonance to make it believable, and rather than having Will being part of the moment, he always feels like the casual observer, commenting on things like they happened to somebody else. It makes me wonder whether this novel would have read better in third person.

But the absolute worst part of Cut Both Ways in terms of writing involves the sex scenes with Angus and Will and Brandy and Will. Due to the flimsy narration and the language that Will has, sex comes across as absolutely creepy and disgusting. It's supposed to be attractive, but the way that it's displayed just makes it sound like something straight out of an erotica novel or a porn film.

'...I can see [Brandy's] body, all of it, naked, and I like how her hips and ass are. I slide down so my head's on her chest. I'm hearing her breathe. I'm feeling her fingers scraping through my hair. I'm touching her boob, watching the skin flicker and get all goose-bumpy, the nipple getting all tight. It's like I'm doing science, but blurry." (pg. 103)

Does this sound nice to anyone? Because it sure as heck didn't for me. I like some restraint in my YA stuff, please and thank you.

But enough of all of this talk about the problems with the writing. I want to return with the reason that this book got a final nail into its coffin: the portrayal of bisexuality in this book is offensive to the LGBT community. I don't know if anyone else who has read this novel has felt that way, but I realized just how mad this book made me because Will's sexuality was handled poorly.

One of the reasons why is because bisexuality is never mentioned by name. I quoted Carrie Mesrobian's author note where she talked about not labeling Will because she wanted it to be up to the reader, and I'm pretty sure all of the readers figured out that Will is bisexual. However, by not focusing on that and Will instead continuing his worrying about being gay, Mesrobian completely avoided the issue and slapped all the people in the face who struggle with their own feelings.

This leads to the portrayal of stereotypes revolving around bisexuality. In this book, Will is doing things with both Angus and Brandy, and whenever he's not with them, he's constantly thinking about having sex. This makes bisexuality look like a promiscuous activity, like everyone who likes both genders must be doing things with a guy and girl at the same time to be satisfied. That isn't true in the slightest, and by doing this, real people are alienated even further than necessary.

And this leads to the point where everything turns sour: bisexuality could have been scrapped from this novel entirely, and nothing would be different. Will would still be aggravating and fixated on the idea that he's gay, and he would still be fooling around with both Angus and Brandy. However, without the synopsis labeling this book as a bisexual novel, we could just excuse this book and say it's about a teenager and his two loves. But by implementing bisexuality, this novel offends readers and just feels like it was written for relevancy in the LGBT discussion.

I have nothing against Carrie Mesrobian for this book, and I'm pretty sure she had good intentions while writing this novel (there's a list of resources featuring information about sexuality in the author's note, for crying out loud). However, the end result is an uncomfortable mess of a novel that feels more like a hindrance to the LGBT community than a resource people can turn to for help, which is a real shame.

If you want to read this book (I'm not recommending it, however), Cut Both Ways is available from HarperCollins under their Harper branch in hardcover and e-book formats, with a paperback edition most likely coming out next year. If you do decide to pick it up, I can only hope that you enjoy it more than I did.

After looking at Carrie Mesrobian's two other novels, they sound the same as Cut Both Ways: a teenage boy with a horrible life messing around and constantly thinking about sex. That's not something that sounds like a fun read to me, so it looks like me and Mesrobian will have to part ways. Hopefully, the next book I pick up will be better than this. Until next time!

Rating: *

Not recommended