As someone who reads a lot of queer books, I was excited to read Jobert Abueva’s Boy Wander: A Coming of Age Memoir. The story is set all over Asia, including the Philippines, Nepal, Thailand, and Japan. Despite being set in the past and in places I haven’t been, I felt immersed in the setting throughout the book. Much of the available and well-known LGBTQIA2S+ media here tends to be rather American-centric, so it was fascinating to read such a different perspective.
I also like that the story is set in the ’70s and ’80s; contemporary queer media likes to pretend that queer history only includes Stonewall and gay marriage being legalized in the United States (which is both untrue and Western-centric).
Although the book does touch on family relationships, it didn’t come across as cliche. It doesn’t rely on the sometimes true but well-worn-nonetheless story of “found family” to tug the heartstrings, and instead focuses on the sense of duty that ties family together (or tears it apart).
I really loved how messy the protagonist can be. Even when he makes choices I wouldn’t, I still wanted to root for him. Besides, a good memoir doesn’t shy away from the awkward, naive, or misguided things someone said or did. The authenticity of including the good, the bad, and the ugly is what makes the story so relatable.
Boy Wander has several overt sexual themes and sex scenes, but they all serve the overarching story. I found it refreshing to read such an unapologetically gay coming-of-age (pun intended). The awkwardness of teenage sexuality, let alone queerness, mixing poorly with rising pressure to fit in socially is not a new story, but certainly a relatable one.
The book also weaves together selfhood with place; the protagonist is pulled in as many directions as places he’s lived. He tries to learn to fit himself into different cultures while coming to terms with his budding sexuality, while also trying to understand the ever-shifting political world he lives in. The emotional rollercoaster of schoolyard crushes against a backdrop of the growing political tensions of the time and places the protagonist grew up in creates a dichotomic plot that tightly weaves around itself.
There’s this myth that “good” LGBTQIA2S+ media needs to represent the whole community in a good light or it sends a bad message to straight audiences. For that reason, I find that much of the queer media that gets popular tends to revolve around conventionally attractive, able-bodied, cis, white, gay folk without any actual overt sexuality (which can be alienating for young folk that don’t fit that bill).
That being said, I don’t feel like this book makes an effort to be palatable to straight audiences. It doesn’t have to. The story felt firmly grounded in lived queer experience, and I love it for that.
All in all, I found the setting charming, the characters compelling, and the story captivating. I can’t wait to read Boy Wander again.