Wide Awake

In the not-to-distant future, when a gay Jewish man is elected president of the United States, sixteen-year-old Duncan examines his feelings for his boyfriend, his political and religious beliefs, and tries to determine his rightful place in the world.

16 year old Duncan is feeling hopeful. The Great Depression is over, the Reign of Fear is just a memory, the first gay/Jewish president, Abraham Stein, has been elected thanks to his ideal of a global Great Community and Duncan is in love with a boy who loves him back. However, when the vote in

Show More

Kansas is thrown into question out of politics instead of fairness Duncan realizes that to have hope for himself, his community and his world he finds himself asking, “What are you willing to do for something you believe in?” His response to this question will challenge everything he once believed about himself, his friends and the world around him.

Wide Awake takes place in a future “decades after 9/11” and illustrates the potential repercussions of what is happening in our world today. David Levithan has created a believable future which I suppose is either hopeful or horrible depending on your current point of view (personally I’m on the side of hopeful). I liked the depiction of the relationship between Duncan and Jimmy. There was a great deal of love but also some of the typical angst you see with many couples, both teen and adult. While Duncan is always of the opinion that Jimmy is the strong one, it is clear that Duncan has some very strong ethics of his own that he’s not afraid to take a chance on. A lot of the events in the story also rang true for me. slight spoiler One part in particular is where Duncan is having a flashback to when he is working on the political campaign for Stein and has to make a series of calls to people to drum up support for his candidate. Some of the people are extremely horrible to him and is illustrated by this part, …the anger, the yelling, the names I was called just for being a Stein supporter by people I’d never met – that wasn’t stupidity as much as loathing and fear. This was my weakness: I couldn’t stand meanness. It unnerved me. As a teen I once did telemarketing for a charity where I was faced with the same reception. After the job was done it was years, lasting until months after I became a secretary at a law firm, before I could answer the phone without having a panic attack. Even without the phone thing I can identify with where the author is coming from with that comment. I feel the same way when faced with hurtful, judgmental people who like to berate and hurt you for no reason than their own pleasure and feelings of superiority.

I guess you could say I liked Wide Awake for all the reasons I disliked [The Losers]. The community, humanitarianism and particularly the act of getting involved for a greater good were all themes I can appreciate. Although I’m not in any way an activist myself I greatly admire those that are.

Show Less

I read this book just before the election and now it feels so much more possible. y initial reaction at the beginning was "holy load of political stuff!" (not my thing, generally) but I liked the message.

Levithan is one of my favorite authors. He has a wonderul style, easy to read but smartly

Show More

written.I love the way he writes relationships, and how he can show intimacy without great detail. An earlier review found the brief description a bit shocking, but I didn't think it shocking at all. Indeed I thought he wrote a well-done scene with a great deal of restraint and class. I've seen more detailed descriptions in YA novels with straight couples.

Show Less

Two gay teens have to decide what to do when their candidate for president is elected, but the governor of Kansas tries to steal the vote.

This book started off kind of boring. Part 1 is where you learn about Duncan and Jimmy and most of the other characters. Part 2 is actually when the book begins to get good. That is the part about Kansas. It tells thhe story of how they got there, who they found there, and what they learned there.

Show More

The characters are forgettable, but the story is one of a country coming together as one, and it is the memorable part.

Show Less

A fascinating alternate future in which the perils of homophobia, Christian hatred and the electoral college play out during a contested election that could place a gay Jewish man (and his husband and kids) in the White House. The story is told through the eyes of a group of Jersey teens (not the

Show More

Jersey Shore crew) and their family and friends. There are some great messages here especially about the silent majority of loving Christians who are out there focusing on Jesus's messages of love and inclusion. This 2006 speculative work has been turned on it's head by the 2008 election, but it's worth the read. Not Levithan's best work. When he's great, he's great. Here, he is good, and still well worth the time.

Show Less

I adore political young adult novels. I just love them. Despite many falling in the 'young adult' category not yet being able to vote, we are people and we are passionate about the world we live in. It is so great to hear voices of fictional teens who feel the same. Wide Awake is the stuff of a

Show More

beautiful liberal idealistic heaven, and has to be one of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading. And he does it so great, too, with his typical mindblowing writing combining with perfection of a plot. He could have easily used the political victory as the ending, but instead took the hard and ultimately more rewarding road of tackling the end at the beginning. While some of the made up historical events seem a little hokey, once they're explained, it's totally believable, albeit idealistic. And while this may be deemed a 'political YA', more than anything this novel is about finding who you are and reconciling your identity with society's dissenting opinions on who you "should" be, whether dictated through social, cultural, or religious "rules". The "Jesus Revolution" mentioned in this book is a beautiful concept and I could only dream of such a thing happening in my lifetime, the idea of religion going back to its roots of love and kindness for all. Stein is kind of a simple character, and elements of the story seem simple, but there are so many amazing qualities found in this book. Religion could easily have been written off as a force of evil and hate. Instead, Levithan takes the effort to imagine people complexly and recognize that religion itself is not inherently good or bad, but a force for potential action in either direction, often both directions, in complicated, tangled up ways. This book is political, but it is about so much more than that. The personal doesn't automatically have to be political, but man, can the political be personal.

Rating: 5/5

Show Less

A bit too forceful in its message that we have to make the future into a place where everyone is equal, and that we need to defeat fear and hate with love (and by ignoring it so we don't give it any more peer). It is an interesting scenario - a gay Jewish guy has just been elected president, and

Show More

the "Decents" are trying to hijack the election (much like what was done in 2000), and Duncan and Jimmy are teens (in love) who travel to the state where the hijacking is taking place (Kansas) to prevent it with the rest of Stein's believers, who are there for the rally. THis is decades into the future, probably about 2070 at least, as 9/11 is "decades" ago. It's a nice place to visit, though the turmoil our world needs to go through in order to achieve it is depressing. It is hopeful, however, like most of Levithan's texts, if utopian and a bit too fantastical.

Show Less

The thing I love about David Levithan is that he writes about how he would like the world to be, not about how awful the world IS.
It wasn't quite as beautifully written as Boy Meets Boy, I thought, but it did almost make me cry at the end.

I can't tell you how much I wanted this novel to be good. The premise is spectacular, and Levithan is a major talent. The characters just fall flat, though, and the major issue (outside the contested election) never gets resolved. Pacing issues abound, and in the end, there simply isn't enough

Show More

connection to narrator or plot for the payoff to have the desired effect. An okay read, but not as powerful as the jacket copy made it sound.

Show Less

David Levithan is the guy whose books I read when I can't deal with the world. Like after Pulse, when all I wanted to do was vanish between the pages of You Know Me Well by Levithan and LaCour. Or like how right now, as we're on the cusp of a Trump/Pence White House, I've decided to pick up Wide

Show More

Awake.

Wide Awake, published ten years ago, takes place in a near-future America... one where a gay, Jewish man has just been elected president... and the equivalents to the Republicans are angry.

This is a very political book -- think Vote for Larry but more realistic and also with a bunch of LGBT characters. It's about political activism and respect for others.

And it's a very hopeful book, too. There are things -- like the treatment of religion -- that I wish I could see more of in today's politics.

Writing-wise, this is not my favourite of Levithan's. However, it's optimistic, and beautiful, and exactly what I needed to read in the wake of the election.

Show Less