"THE NIGHT ELVIS KISSED JAMES DEAN"

Two boys fall in love in Riddle’s YA novella.

It’s 1958, and 17-year-old Billy Sanders is obsessed with James Dean. (“Not only did I try to act like him, I dressed like him and cut my hair like him, too.”) The students at Hollywood High School nickname him “James,” and even the teachers tell him they see a resemblance. One day, Billy—a self-proclaimed “peeper” in the boys’ locker room—gets an intimate view of 17-year-old Jason Blue, who happens to look exactly like Elvis. The two converse, and Jason admits he’s been noticing Billy for a few weeks. Jason asks Billy on a date to a lookout point, where the two kiss and then dive headlong into a fast-moving relationship. (Billy brings Jason home to meet his parents the next night; Jason brings Billy home during the week.) They go dancing at a gay club on Halloween and Jason introduces Billy to some of his friends (who, conveniently, happen to resemble Paul Newman, Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas, and Ricky Nelson). And then they just sort of…hang out. This is the story’s main problem: Nothing actually happens. The narration resembles entries in a teenager’s diary, offering an abundance of references to popular music and actors of the 1950s. The brief nature of many of the scenes (some of which summarize entire months in just a few sentences) results in a lack of depth; there are no real stakes, and none of the characters display much personality. At one point, a hint of engaging drama—in the form of a fellow student threatening to tell everyone about the boys’ relationship—seems to emerge, but it’s dropped immediately and never surfaces again.

Fun pop cultural references can’t make up for a lack of plot.