Swing for the Fences

Mental Health is real and has no age!

This captivating tale serves as an educational reminder that the emotional well-being of our youth must be taken seriously

A journey of self-discovery interwoven with a beautiful love story, cemented in friendship, laced with heartbreak and a whole lot of drama

It is highly addictive and the sequel is highly anticipated ...

More than 20 years ago, Little Buddha burst onto the gay fiction scene with an amazing story about a teenage boy, coping with a difficult family situation and finding love. There have only been a handful of stories since then, but now, LB has emerged with a full-length novel with a sequel in the works and another novel ready to post. His talents as a writer have only matured since then and with Swing from the Fences, we have a tightly-integrated, complex story about abuse, grief and love.

This is not your typical story about high school romance. Nick presents as a high school freshman who never fully dealt with the death of his father a few years ago. His unresolved grief has resulted in insecurity, self-doubt and severe depression. Jack has suffered mental and some physical abuse from his parents all of his life. The psychiatric effects have been profound and there remains much for him to resolve. The two are paired as roommates at a prestigious boarding school, where they support each other as they search for stability, and ultimately find love.

This story is about gay teenager going to a new school. But it explores the themes in it's own way, avoiding feeling repetitive of other stories in this genre.

The aspects that stand out for me is how introspective the story gets at times and it dealing with mental health.

A lot of GA stories about gay kids are a lot of elements in common.This is not a criticism I enjoy stories like that but there is a cookie cutter sameness to a lot of them.That is definitely not the case here.These characters are a lot of fun .Think Mel Brooks at his best (he 's has some bad one)only he writing for kids. At times it seems like it 24/7 party time but it is equally tempered by buy issue like how difficult a private school could be and the usual issues of school but only it's all day since you don't go to the sanctuary of home at the end of the day. But especially the mental health issues in this story,You'll find that you will think of things that you never considered before.It was very well done.