Beneath Angel Wings Gay teen coming of age novel edition by E Summers Alice P Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Beneath Angel Wings Gay teen coming of age novel edition by E Summers Alice P Literature Fiction eBooks 
Bullied, secretly gay and friendless, with little love or support from his parents, seventeen year-old Adam has reached his breaking point. Fortunately, just as he’s about to take the irrevocable last step, he meets Angel, who helps him find another path.
Angel’s has plenty of his own challenges in his life and no time to take on other people’s problems, but when he recognizes Adam’s desperation, he can’t turn away. On the spur of the moment, he becomes the younger boy’s protector and introduces him to a new group of friends who help Adam develop the strength and self-confidence to confront and overcome his fears.
The two boys from different backgrounds have little in common, yet their new friendship helps them both move closer to achieving their dreams. Angel embarks on a road to independence while Adam finds his first love. Then, just when things can’t get much better, Adam faces his worst nightmare and has to make a life-altering choice.
This coming-out novel about a gay teen includes themes that may not be appropriate for readers under fifteen years of age such as attempted suicide, physical and verbal bullying, safe sex, and potentially offensive language.
Beneath Angel Wings Gay teen coming of age novel edition by E Summers Alice P Literature Fiction eBooks
This is a story of what can happen when young men make the decision to disclose to to their parents their sexual orientation. Beginning with a suicide attempt, an all too common solution to a temporary problem, it tells the story of two young men who find love, kindness and acceptance together.The author uses their talent to relate one such story with love and affection in a way that speaks to a YA audience, and yet, it speaks to parents and families of those who may need to see the real dangers of total rejection. Since it begins with Adam's suicide attempt, it appears that his guardian "Angel" may actually have been just that, since it is he who ultimately faces total rejection and faces his worst fear, that of losing his family.
Although he finds acceptance and love with his partner's family, and does have a positive outcome, nothing can ever overcome the fact that through bigotry and religious rejection, he will remain alienated from his own family.
This book has a real purpose. It is a warning to parents to embrace their children and their perceived faults and to love them unconditionally. This can and should be read by both the targeted young adult audience and also by parents who may be struggling with their own child's sexual orientation.
The writing never dumbs down to speak to its audience. It is written for adults, too. It is written with real concern and feeling so that, just maybe, some parents will take heed, and avoid the pain and suffering that they may inflict upon their children. The alternatives are distinctly noted here, suicide, loss of affection, homelessness, and words spoken that can never be taken back. Is it better to lose a child to one of these, to never again have that child's love and affection, or is it possible to be accepting?
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Beneath Angel Wings Gay teen coming of age novel edition by E Summers Alice P Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
I met the author at a conference and promised to read her debut novel although I don't normally read YA fiction.
This is a beautiful story that highlights both the ups and downs of modern teen life, not shying away from heavy subjects like suicide, bullying etc.
Difficult topics such as transgender ism are explained pedagogically and leaves teens with arguments to use in real life. But beyond the educational aspects, the story had me cry and sob more times than I care to admit, it's written with a lot of heart and soul.
It has a great ending that left me exactly the way I like to feel at the end of a book hopeful for humanity and all fuzzy and warm.
This is a terrific, heartfelt book filled with strong characters, both likable and unlikable. The premise intrigued me because I always enjoy stories where people come together because of an unusual set of circumstances, whereas they would never have probably even met, let alone become friends otherwise. Seventeen-year-old Adam is Caucasian, the son of snooty parents, gay, and attends a Catholic High School. He has been so unmercifully bullied with no one standing up for him, especially his own detached parents, that he is in the process of killing himself as the novel opens.
Nineteen-year-old Angel is of Mexican descent, struggling to make it on his own who happens to be looking for a quiet place to chill when he literally stumbles upon Adam and his razor blade. An unlikely friendship is born.
Angel literally stops Adam from committing suicide and then becomes a kind of guardian angel to the younger boy. With the help of his cousins, Angel takes on the bullies and empowers Adam over time. More importantly, he makes a conscious choice, despite his many personal responsibilities, to help this complete stranger feel better about himself so he will never try suicide again, a choice that changes him in as many ways as it changes Adam. Why does he do this? There's a reason we learn near the end, but by that time it's almost unimportant because these two seem to mesh together so seamlessly, despite their inherent differences. That's a big part of the message I love - Angel's Mexican relatives and friends accept Adam even when he sucks at soccer, and Adam loves being with them because, as with all ethnic or sexual orientation variations, at the end of the day we're all the same - human, and these people "get" that. It's a theme I use in my own writing and I love the way the author brings these disparate people together and forges bonds that will last a lifetime.
There are subplots involving Angel's goal of adopting his younger half-brother, Keenan, and how Adam helps the younger boy without consciously planning to just be being himself. Keenan and another boy from Adam's school, Sebastian, are very likable, too. Again, Sebastian is white, while Keenan is of mixed-race and there's no issue about those unimportant differences at all because they simply like each other. Javier, Angel's friend, is a significant character, both to Angel and to Adam, and Javier's family members are amazing, really well drawn and realized.
On the surface, I suppose, some critics might say that Angel is too good to be true. Maybe, maybe not. I've known people much like him. He chooses to do the right things because he has a real goal in life and having that goal infuses his decision-making, which leads me to one aspect of this character related to that goal that I particularly loved too many authors seem to be of the opinion that teen males (and yes, nineteen is still a teen) are driven purely by primal urges and cannot possibly exercise self-control under any circumstances. Angel could be a player if he wanted. By all accounts he's very handsome and seems charismatic. But he chooses not to be a player or get involved with anyone sexually because his goal is to get custody of his little brother and prove he's responsible rather than careless. He also has to work a lot and save his money toward that goal. I love this guy. A man after my own heart, exercising the easy art of self-discipline for a higher purpose. I say it's easy, because it is. We don't see as much self-restraint as we should in our young people today because it is not being modeled for them by their elders, in real life or in entertainment.
So yes, all of you out there, us males can control ourselves, and by doing so, Angel is an outstanding role model for his thirteen-year-old brother. Keenan can learn by his brother's actual modeling of self-restraint, rather than by cheap words not borne out by actions. Angel was, for me, the most interesting of the characters. To her credit, the author shows the darker side of Javier's father, but ultimately the love of parent for child prevails, as it always should. However, Ms. Summers doesn't sugarcoat Adam's strict, hardcore, rigid parents by making them act in ways counter to who they are, even though Adam's life becomes increasingly more strained and difficult as a result. Sadly, there are way too many parents like them, the kind of people who should never have had kids in the first place.
This brings me to my one caveat with this book, and admittedly, it's a personal dislike whenever I encounter it. The author alternates narrators by chapter, bouncing back and forth from Adam to Angel a la Rick Riordan in his latest Percy Jackson books. And I dislike it in those books, too. Often here, the author repeats the same scene or partial scene that has already happened through the eyes of the other narrator, and I found that especially annoying. As an author in my own right, I try to keep point of view to one character per scene, but that doesn't always happen. However, from scene to scene that point of view could change depending upon what is happening. I feel this book would have been much better and less disorienting if the author had used only one narrator, or merely switched from Angel to Adam per scene as needed. At present, it almost seems like two different books, melded together at times, but otherwise on their own separate tracks. It becomes especially problematic with a major plot thread involving Adam's feelings for Angel, which culminates late in the book. However, we already know the answer way before Adam does because we're inside Angel's head. Thus, being way ahead, a whole sequence that should have been emotionally powerful for Adam and us readers is sadly anti-climactic.
Ah, well, as I said, the alternating chapter thing is a technique I never like, just as I hate those found-footage, home video-type movies where somebody's always running for their life carrying a camera. A personal pet peeve, I admit. It would probably lose half a star for this if I could do that, but since I can't I'm letting it be.
All in all, this is a well-written, involving book with strong characters and a strong message for teens and adults alike no matter how much you think you're alone and you have no reason to live, there is someone out there who wants you to, even if you haven't met him yet. It also reminds us to stop obsessing over ourselves, get the ear buds out of our ears, and pay attention to other people around us. In so doing, we might sense the desperation of another, especially a teenager, and save a life the way Angel did. All it takes is the willingness to step up, something too few people today seem willing to do.
This is billed as a gay coming of age story, and it is. But more importantly, it's the story of a boy made to feel worthless his whole life who finally, through caring friends, comes to realize his worth as a human being, much like George Bailey does in "It's a Wonderful Life." After all, that movie said it best no man is a failure who has friends, and Adam has tons. Highly recommended.
E. Summer's "Beneath Angel's Wings" is a wonderful new addition to the YA/LGBT world.
It starts in a very dark place - and then Angel appears. Adam, at 16, is at the end of his rope, pushed there by bullying at school and his parents' seemingly hostile indifference to his plight. He is poised to take his own life, but Angel stops him, and offers him the one thing he's never felt - friendship.
From this brief, critical act of salvation Summer's book unrolls into a fascinating, touching and ultimately powerful story of creating a family that crosses lines of race, ethnicity and social class in a way I've never experienced in a YA novel. Written in the typically "non-literary" style that one sees in YA novels, the power in this book is its narrative, the interweaving of Adam's story with those of other people who, because of Angel, become increasingly important in his life.
Summer uses both Adam's and Angel's points of view, repeating an episode in the plot through different eyes. It's a wee bit jarring at first, but then becomes an interesting technique for showing the reader how the two main characters understand what's happening around them.
I am always a little sad when parents become negative archetypes, and Adam's fit that bill. But the book makes up for it in a very powerful way that I won't reveal. Not all happy endings are achieved without cost, but life is like that.
This is a story of what can happen when young men make the decision to disclose to to their parents their sexual orientation. Beginning with a suicide attempt, an all too common solution to a temporary problem, it tells the story of two young men who find love, kindness and acceptance together.
The author uses their talent to relate one such story with love and affection in a way that speaks to a YA audience, and yet, it speaks to parents and families of those who may need to see the real dangers of total rejection. Since it begins with Adam's suicide attempt, it appears that his guardian "Angel" may actually have been just that, since it is he who ultimately faces total rejection and faces his worst fear, that of losing his family.
Although he finds acceptance and love with his partner's family, and does have a positive outcome, nothing can ever overcome the fact that through bigotry and religious rejection, he will remain alienated from his own family.
This book has a real purpose. It is a warning to parents to embrace their children and their perceived faults and to love them unconditionally. This can and should be read by both the targeted young adult audience and also by parents who may be struggling with their own child's sexual orientation.
The writing never dumbs down to speak to its audience. It is written for adults, too. It is written with real concern and feeling so that, just maybe, some parents will take heed, and avoid the pain and suffering that they may inflict upon their children. The alternatives are distinctly noted here, suicide, loss of affection, homelessness, and words spoken that can never be taken back. Is it better to lose a child to one of these, to never again have that child's love and affection, or is it possible to be accepting?
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