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  • Openly Straight

  • Written by: Bill Konigsberg
  • Narrated by: Pete Cross
  • Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (49 ratings)

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Openly Straight

Written by: Bill Konigsberg
Narrated by: Pete Cross
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Publisher's Summary

Rafe is a normal teenager from Colorado. He's been out since 8th grade, accepted by his peers & championed by his progressive parents. And while that's important, all Rafe really wants is to be a regular guy. To have his sexuality be a part of who he is, but not the headline, every single time. So when Rafe transfers to an all-boys' boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret - not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate breaking down and realizes his own labels aren't well-concealed. And most of all, he falls in love with Ben...who doesn't even know that love is possible.

©2015 Bill Konigsberg (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC

What the critics say

"From the first, Pete Cross's narration describes the high spirits of Rafe and his family.... The humor continues outwardly throughout the book, but Cross undercuts it with Rafe's uncomfortable inner feelings.... Cross's delivery reflects how Rafe wrestles with honesty, hides truths in a romantic relationship, and finally faces the painful path to becoming his real self." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about Openly Straight

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

I wish I listened to this sooner.

First, let me start with this, I am come from a completely bias opinion, I freaking loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the story, the storytelling was amazing, I never thought I could love something some much, and this, this brought me joy I haven't felt in a long time, and I am so happy I took the leap and got this book, because it was amazing. If the description sounds good to you, and you're checking reviews you decide if you should check it out. Do it, and I hope that this will be just as amazing as it was for you, as it was for me.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Did not like the ending - loved the book

I loved this book and the very much coming of age feel it had.
I laughed, cried for frustrated and felt emotions going in all directions.
Definitely a book for any teens/adults who feel like they might want to find themselves or that they fall into the “different” category. Great for teens as the swearing is not excessive the sexual conversations/references are not explicit I feel.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Better than Expected

I'm a straight social worker and always looking for material to help me understand the LGBT world. This encapsulated the impact of labels and the dilemma of honesty. It captures the longing for connection with others and with self.

Narration does an amazing job of bringing the story to life.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Cute and funny (mostly)

The good:

This book cracked me up a lot, not gonna lie. The characters are (for the most part) fleshed out and interesting, and I especially liked the roommate character and his friend. The MC (Rafe) is a dorky idiot, but in a good way.

There’s a neat meta thing where Rafe is actually writing part of the novel in the story, and he gets some interesting feedback that made me want to pause and think.

Overall it’s an entertaining, easy listen.

(Also the narrator does a GREAT job with the different character voices... there’s even a moment with an accent that sounds exactly like how it’s described.)


The bad:

The premise is a little far-fetched, it’s hard to believe that this kid buys into his own excuses so hard it takes him months to figure out what he did wrong. However, to be fair, I enjoyed the way in which he does reach his final conclusion.

(sorry, I go on a rant now)
So, this book has weirdly problematic moments that kind of came out of nowhere. There’s a character that’s presented as “some guy Rafe just doesn’t get along with” and later we find out, on a seemingly unrelated note, that this guy is more “outwardly gay,” like the way he dresses and talks... and the subtext suggests that this is a bad thing. This character is presented as super annoying, and Rafe (who can easily pass as a straight jock) doesn’t learn anything from his own prejudice. The other obviously gay character is presented as a total weirdo and an outcast, though thankfully Rafe is friends with him.
There are also some tone-deaf pro-animal cruelty comments (I found the phrase “a live pig” ironic when used to refer to a pig roast...)
Oh, and the R-word is dropped for seemingly no reason other than “realism” I guess, and is never addressed.
I know I’m probably nit-picking, but in a book that wants to be super progressive, these moments gave me whiplash.


tl;dr cute book sometimes problematic but makes up for it with humour, one thumb up :)

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Jay
  • 2019-08-23

Wonderful book

This book really made me think. There are so many books similar to this one, but yet so different. This book truly was so amazing, once I started, I didn’t want to stop. It taught me a lot of important lessons and made me understand more about the lgbtq+ community. It also taught me some very important literature knowledge, like what speed writing is. All and all this book was fantastic. The storyline, the characters, just everything about it was amazing. Highly recommend.

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  • Johnathan
  • 2017-08-20

Dissapointing

Don't buy this if you want a good story, much less a romantic story.

This book is little more than a vehicle for the author to express his opinions on how gay people should behave and feel about their own sexuality.

It's essentially the "if you're not flaming gay, you're really just repressed or self hating" argument stretched over way too many pages.

I felt betrayed when I realized this, having already become attached to the plot and characters, who were never really done justice as they were clearly playing second fiddle to the author's "message."

Only positive thing I can say is the narration was decent (but I don't want that to factor into my overall rating, lest I understate the disappointment this novel proved to me.)

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109 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Ray Paramo
  • 2017-04-15

A Novel Worth 'Celebrating.'

Any additional comments?

Though I was a bit apprehensive about this novel's premise at first, I ended up falling in love with its narrative. It does take a little while to warm up to Rafe, but he ends up revealing an authentic, sympathetic side with which readers/listeners can genuinely connect. With an entertaining cast of characters and a heartwarming story about growth--a realization that others should not only be tolerated, or accepted, but celebrated--Konigsberg's 'Openly Straight' is a surprising delight. I cannot wait to dive into its companion novel, 'Honestly Ben'!

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21 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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  • Jacob
  • 2018-04-09

Beautiful story

Where was this book when I was 17!? This helped heal very real and deep wounds I didn’t even know where there. Funny, gut wrenching, heart ache and triumphs are all in this wonderful journey our young protagonist starts.

Love, from a foot tapper.

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17 people found this helpful

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  • Greg Hollinshead
  • 2020-04-28

Not a romance novel

I grabbed this with my monthly credits as 1) a romance novel, 2) a queer romance novel and came out of the experience pretty disappointed. After thinking about it, my disappointment is because this is not even slightly trying to be a romance novel and shouldn't have been marketed as such because this is a story about how Rafe comes to terms with both being gay and how people and the world change to respond to that fact. I came into being pansexual as a straight-presenting cis man in my later twenties so perhaps I am not the target audience for a coming-of-age story of a teenager who only fancies men, so if that is you, I hope this rings much more true for you, but definitely don't go into this expecting a gay romance

Toby, Alby, and Ben are all great characters that we don't get to see enough of. The only sexual experience with Ben gets yada yada'd "I mentioned the bisque", which, aside from two kisses, is the only physical romance we get. The relationship with Ben and where it leads is totally unresolved as is the potential for conflict and growth with the school's homophobic atmosphere and jocks. Bryce is brought up as a very interesting character who suffers from depression and is one of the few black students in a mostly-white school, yet he exeunts stage left very early and both his race and character are largely irrelevant to the remaining story aside from 2 short scenes which leaves a lot of room for narration, introspection, and conversation unfulfilled in my opinion. It's just odd that we spent the entire book talking about making space for and accepting people who don't fit into labels around cliques or sexuality so that they can feel like full human beings, but we couldn't find any space for the one black kid in junior year other than to use him as a plot device for our two white characters to forge a relationship over his exit now that his bed next to Ben is empty which gives us a chance to get closer to our love interest. It's like, we went out of our way with the Mr. Scarborough scene to point out how being the only black character in a school of whites would be isolating and contributing to his depression, but we still dumped the character unceremoniously just to give our romantic characters a chance to smooch

In the positive things I have to say, the characters are written pretty much how I might expect sixteen year olds (I had to look this up because I had no idea how old juniors were as a Canadian, it's grade 11 fyi.) to act, however, there is a use of the R slur for neuroatypical people by one of the characters that was totally unnecessary imo, as well as several uses of the F slur (not the fuck word) so prospective viewers should be forewarned. I also think the narrator did a great job with voices differentiating the main characters (toby, alby, rafe) and I only had a few small instances where I had trouble discerning who was speaking because of terse back and forth dialogue

Finally, when I came back to review this, I see this novel is part of a series but I must say that even though the book ended seemingly very abruptly I'm not interested in seeing how it progresses but I hope that Ben can find some support and found family in his journey, wherever it leads him.

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15 people found this helpful

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  • Claire Mueggenberg
  • 2017-04-19

A+++

A wonderful, memorable experience. I felt it accurately portrayed the plight of the modern gay kid while maintaining a light hearted tone. Very very good.

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12 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • A's Mom
  • 2017-09-23

Perspective

Great writing and eye opening perspective. Although sometimes painful, this story seems so valuable for sharing a view that is impossible to get from the straight side. I also appreciated that the character is in high school and how being gay affects his view of the world.

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7 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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  • sremel9
  • 2017-08-01

Good book

Narration took some getting used to but really enjoyed the book as a whole. Would definitely choose the book again and will look for more from this author.

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6 people found this helpful

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  • work in progress
  • 2017-09-24

I love this book

This book is wonderful. I was just thinking about the fact that I haven’t heard a book in awhile where I actually care what happens to the characters. I love these beautiful kids. I want them to be real. I think think they are real. I chose this story because it was the Audible Pick if the Day. I know I wouldn’t have tried it otherwise; I wouldn’t have waisted my credit on it because I normally read thrillers. This story tugged at my heart strings and made me laugh out loud. It’s beautiful.

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5 people found this helpful

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  • Roy Casstevens
  • 2017-09-25

Hated to have it end.

What did you love best about Openly Straight?

Mr. Konigsberg has a great style that make an audio book really easy to listen to. The story grabbed me right away to see if Rafe's experiment would work.

What other book might you compare Openly Straight to and why?

I love Haley Walsh's books. But really hard to make any kind of comparison.

Have you listened to any of Pete Cross’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

The is the first I've heard from Peter Cross. I found it well paced and he did a great job with voices for each of the characters.

Any additional comments?

I had hoped for a happier ending for Rafe and Ben. It kind of wrapped up quickly. I hope Mr. Konigsberg's next one take me where i'd like it to go. I'm hooked, though..

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3 people found this helpful

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  • Lionel
  • 2017-10-02

so much more than a coming out novel

I was not prepared for the questions this brought up. outstanding and unique perspective.

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2 people found this helpful