"Wide Awake" by David Levithan

See? I told you I'd make a post! This is an awesome (though admittedly quite short) book. Here we go...

It starts with a short chapter, not even half a page. Not even a respectable paragraph, but still – wonderful in its all its brevity. 

" 'I can't believe there's going to be a gay Jewish president.' As my mother said this, she looked at my father, who was still staring at the screen. They were shocked, barely comprehending. 

Me? I sat there and beamed."

Duncan is sixteen in the near future, after the Greater Depression and the War to End All Wars. And now, after all the fear and anger of the past, comes something wonderful. The Jesus Revolution, the Prada Riots, the rise of the green states. A president – Abraham Stein – who is going to bring everyone together in "the Great Community". Duncan, as a gay Jewish boy, is ecstatic. So is his boyfriend, Jimmy, and Janna and Mandy, their friends and self-proclaimed "Jesus Freaks", named after a song that the popular band Holy Ghostwriter had written. Things are finally going right!

But not everyone is happy. Mr. Davis, for one: the history teacher at their high school. Jesse Marin, a boy at school with a nasty following.

And then... the unthinkable happens. On the way to a party the day after the announcement of Stein's victory, the governor of Kansas decides that his state's votes need to be recounted. That Stein didn't really win by over a thousand votes. And that this election is definitely not over.

" 'Come to Kansas.' "  This is Stein's response. Come to Kansas. Let's make this state see the truth.

So they do – Jimmy, Duncan, Janna and Mandy, Keisha and Mira, Virgil and Sara, and more, plus the hitchhikers they pick up on the road. Kansas is going to be full this weekend...

A fantastic work, full of confusion, teenage angst, and love, plus a little politics and hope for the future. David Levithan is an artist!

– sometimes here, sometimes not, but definitely excited for tomorrow (!),

Cassandra