Waking Up

Sometimes I feel that if you look deep enough inside the book you are reading, you can see all of the things you hope for - peace, undying love, equality, happiness & sadness at all the right times, an achievable challenge, camaraderie in the darkest of moments, and a place you can call home. My heart ached with joy while I read Wide Awake because Duncan had all of it, and for 240 pages I was able to live vicariously through him.

Overall, I loved the concept of the book. I liked the idea of Jesus Freaks and the more liberal community working together for equality, and I personally think this is the direction a large portion of our society is starting to take. I also thought it was a nice take on our future society - whether or not it will turn out exactly that way or not - but that it didn't necessarily take too many extreme turns for dramatic effect. There were some parts that I thought were too unrealistic (like the non-shopping malls), but from a political and (future) historical aspect, I think Levithan hit the nail on the head, or was at least pretty close to doing so.

Unfortunately, while I liked the idea of the book, I wasn't too fond of the characters...for the most part we only saw very small snapshots of everyone. Also, since it was all through Duncan's eyes, I feel like we rarely learned who anyone else really was. We had his opinions on the relationships of his friends, his minimal interactions with the newcomers when they reached Kansas, and his thoughts about his boyfriend. I wish less of it had been from his perspective because then maybe we could have learned how the situation felt to the others. I personally wish I could have heard more from his friends that were considered Jesus Freaks. When did that group start to favor the more 'democratic' political views? What kind of drama was there between them and the people like Mary Catherine? How many more people associated with this group? Was it generally younger people, or people of all ages? What other political groups were there? I guess I ended the book with more questions than I wanted, and it isn't that I needed to know these things, but I'm still a bit curious. I think it would have added a bit more depth to the story that goes beyond Duncan's feelings.

Aside from the fact that the book may be too political to teach in some lower grades, I think that the very explicit scene with Duncan and Jimmy is a bit too inappropriate. I was personally a bit disappointed in Levithan for including it, because I felt like he had built up a strong relationship between them already, and that he automatically made his book questionable by including it. Any scene that is that graphic (regardless of the genders/ages of the individuals involved) is going to be hard to convince as being vital to a plot to a group of concerned parents. I think it would be very difficult to use this book in a classroom, and I think that it's unfortunate because it was a great story and a very interesting look into the future.
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Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which others have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life. - Jesse Lee Bennett