Totally Joe by James Howe.

Howe, James.
Totally Joe.
New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2005.


Joe Bunch, an anything-but-average thirteen year-old, is completing an alphabiography for his seventh grade English teacher. It would be a chore for anyone that doesn’t like to talk or tell stories as much as Joe does. However, for this energetic teenager, it is an opportunity to explain his life, friends, crushes, glamour moments, and insecurities on his own terms. From learning how exactly he’s supposed to hang out with his first boyfriend (Um, awkward. Hello.) to the last time he lets himself be taunted by the likes of the school bully (like, don’t even try), Joe tells his own story of realizing who he is and what he wants out of his time in middle school. Covering his life from A to Z, Joe finds out that his friends aren’t perfect, his parents will love him no matter what, and rumors can hurt, but they don’t kill.

James Howe successfully bridges the gap between his own mind and that of a seventh grade boy that believes he’s destined for pop culture stardom. Howe creates Joe’s character embracing the stereotypes of the teenager it seems everyone knows is gay. Joe is that one kid in every middle school that is labeled “flamer”, “queer”, and “fag”. This time, though, instead of running away from it and trying to cover it up, we read about a kid that accepts himself for who he is, knowing that it’s pointless to try and be anything else. Though at times Joe’s life seems a little too blessed and picturesque, one almost wonders if that’s the case, or it’s the positive spin he seems capable of applying in almost any of life’s situations. Accurately depicting some of the many trials adolescents go through in discovering who they are, the reader identifies often with Joe and the self-invoked life lessons he learns, including some philosophical realizations (i.e. “Popularity is a win-win for the popular kids and a lose-lose for everybody else”) and other more obvious ones (such as, “Jack Nicholson is weird”).

On a much more personal note, this book spoke absolute volumes to me. Having grown up in the closet feeling I had to hide who I was, Totally Joe was made real to me in a way it might not come to life for others. At 25 years, I couldn’t be much more out and comfortable with my sexuality. Amazingly, there was still a lot I felt I learned from a 13 year-old that doesn’t even really want to kiss boys yet. While reading, there were many times I wished I could have been the teenager that Joe allows himself to be, but we aren’t all meant to overcome our obstacles with such dramatic poignancy for others to read. For anyone that has a teenager who may or may not be gay (really, people of all types and ages will learn a little from this story) in their classroom, home, or library – this is the perfect book to recommend to them (or just leave it around hoping they might pick it up) and let them find out that it’s okay to be exactly who you are.