Reading a Teenage Romance
As we’re nearing the end of Pride Month, I thought I would feature a book that I read awhile back and was enchanted by for many reasons. To be honest, I was looking for any Young Adult Romance – not necessarily LGBT-centered – but one that resonated with current teenage readers. My motive: to get a handle on the younger generation, their thoughts and points of view. I realized, soon enough, that one of the easier ways is to dig into current young adult reads. This, believe me, is more pleasurable than talking to young adults IRL (In Real Life). Because, even if you think you’re somewhat attuned to contemporary culture, you will inevitably be greeted with patronizing sighs and a glazed tolerance.
This was the first time I was reading Alice Oseman, an author who is only 28 years old and who published her bestselling debut at 17. Nick and Charlie revolves around a sweet high-school couple, who have been dating each other for two years. Charlie’s in Year 12, and Nick, in Year 13, will be heading out to college soon. Earlier graphic novels by Oseman have dealt with dips and bumps in their relationship – the thrill and angst about discovering their feelings and acknowledging them, coming out to friends and families, becoming a couple with the self-doubt and confusion that can color any romance.
Charlie exudes leadership (he’s the Head Boy) and maturity, buttressing his decisions with a personal philosophy that can seem precociously wise for a 17-year-old: “Keep the teachers on your side and the students on your side. Don’t make enemies or too many friends. That’s my advice for getting through school.”
This, of course, is a sheen that’s soon shattered by understandable fears: about Nick going to college and breaking up with him. About being stranded alone at school, while Nick savors a wider universe. Will their relationship withstand distance and newness and Charlie’s own complicated feelings? Oseman puts her finger on the complex mixture of emotions that can accompany one partner’s move into an exciting realm while the other watches from a terrain of grating sameness. Charlie’s happy, of course, for Nick’s success, but his cheer is edged with resentment.
Woven into all this, are the opinions of other high-schoolers, whose messages and warnings, spill into Charlie’s Tumblr. “isn’t it weird u’ve been together so long tho??? like 14 is so young to get into a relationship. u shouldn’t feel like u have to stay in your first relationship forever…” “Dude long distance never works, trust me it’s better to end it now and save yourself the pain.”
Relationships, perhaps, have never been easy, even in eras that preceded our techno-fueled lives. Now they’re embedded inside instantaneous judgments, texted by supposedly well-meaning peers, whose appraisal of your relationship might wrongfully trigger your own reappraisal. If careers, passions and identities need space to flourish, so do partnerships, which are, unfortunately being hemmed in by the micro-watchfulness of real and virtual ‘friends.’
But Nick and Charlie are a thing in another sense: they epitomize the kind of affection and sharing that can blossom between two human beings, an attachment that rests on something deeper than physical attraction. “It’s weird that we hang out every single day, it’s weird that we’d rather just be with each other all the time.” When they break up, they disappoint those who’ve set them up as a sort of ‘couple goal.’
Spoiler Alert: I’m not sure if rom-coms need spoiler alerts, but yes, the book does end on an upbeat note. But I think the real cause for optimism lies elsewhere. Earlier in the story, Charlie was talking about the manner in which he used to be bullied for being gay. Of how he and Nick had hidden their relationship at first because they were scared not just for themselves, but also for each other. Gradually, however, the environs seem friendlier: “Nowadays, we don’t have to be scared here. I hold his hand whenever I want.” That’s an ending we should hope for in all settings.
References
Alice Oseman, Nick and Charlie: A Solitaire Novella, Harper Collins Children’s Books, 2020