LOVE DRUGGED

Only slowly accepting his homosexuality, 15-year-old Jamie Bates recoils when he encounters an odd gay student. Once Jamie learns of an untested drug, Rehomoline, that may control same-sex attraction, he begins taking doses, even though the side effects build. This novel is an unfortunate return to early teen gay literature: Sexuality is presented as a problem, not a part of an identity. Despite the first-person narration, Jamie never develops a personality; character motives are either summed up in a simple sentence following Jamie’s choices or left alone. Jamie’s secretive chat sessions with fellow gay teens create some of the few authentic and encouraging moments in the tale; in most instances, he bounces between thinly veiled homophobic moments and awkward encounters with an effeminate homosexual student. School librarian Mr. Covici, with his inspirational messages, presumably acts as an authorial voice within the text (the author, who is gay, is a high-school librarian), but he is such a forced insertion as to feel unnatural. With the dated feel and the insubstantial characterization, Klise’s first novel is a placebo rather than a cure. (Fiction. 12 & up)