#1 in LGBTQ || When Johnny and Jason, the high school football team's two star players, come out on social media as gay lovers, all hell breaks loose in the small Appalachian town of Kenton. Their lives, and those of some of their teammates who come...
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BEST FRIENDS 4NEVER is an erotic thriller about two star high school football players based on actual events in my life during the summer before my senior year of high school. This was the year when same-sex marriage was legalized in America, an event that is featured in the story as the two main characters take part in some notable events of that day. These two boys narrate the story, definitely reliable narrators as they bare their hearts, minds, and souls with deep emotion and complete honesty. One reader wrote, 'If you like athletic boys who like boys and want to know what makes them tick, this book is definitely for you'. Given by other fans such ambitious praise as 'a trailblazer of feels', 'daringly realistic', 'the truth they keep buried about Coming Out in America', and 'two Catcher(s) in the Rye navigating an erotic Wuthering Heights', the book has racked up millions of reads on some of today's top serial-reading sites. Now in its eighth year on Wattpad, it's a former #1 LGBTQ book (August '22) and also has been #1 in numerous related tags. often for weeks or months at a time, and is now still going strong with over 1,000 reads a week.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: the book is rated MATURE and strictly adheres to all the Wattpad content guidelines. It is explicitly erotic, and also explicit about many aspects of gay male life as it follows some of the characters discovering and exploring that world. It contains a number of sex scenes, some with multiple partners; also strong, vulgar, and offensive language, violence and attempted sexual assault, homophobia and internalized homophobic discomfort, scenes of PTSD mental and physical distress, intense family secrets and dysfunction, and other potentially triggering subject matter.
There has been criticism of these aspects of the book over the years, as to be expected. But there has been far more praise for this realistic content, especially from young people dealing with 'coming out' issues who have found this story a lifesaver, a guide to navigating the toxic culture wars many LGBT teens still have to face today. It is a strong, tough book, realistic, supportive, and inclusive, written with the intent to inform, instruct, help, and encourage those, and the people who love them, who might have to live through similar situations.
Overall it is positive, upbeat and enjoyable, with a whole lot of good awesome content, complex characters, intricate plotting, lyrical prose, and gripping POVs (as many reader comments praise). So if you are looking for something realistic, topical, and contemporary, something that could actually happen to teen gay males you might know, or maybe you yourself, I hope you read Best Friends 4Never and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. .
