| Title | : | Geography Club (Russel Middlebrook, #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0060012234 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780060012236 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 226 |
| Publication | : | First published March 1, 2003 |
| Awards | : | Rhode Island Teen Book Award (2005) |
Russel is still going on dates with girls. Kevin would do anything to prevent his teammates on the baseball team from finding out. Min and Terese tell everyone they're really just good friends. But after a while, the truth's too hard to hide - at least from each other - so they form the "Geography Club." Nobody else will come. Why would they want to? Their secret should be safe.
Geography Club (Russel Middlebrook, #1) Reviews
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It is my second read of this book. I cried harder the second time.
We all lived in a world where being different is bad, ridiculed and not welcome. I think it is a bit ironic that people keep telling us to be different, to think different. But here we are getting shit for being different. And that even more suck in high school where they say has the best memories but it is also where anyone can find themselves in a toughest situation.
And this book is about getting through that and also about friendship and finding new ones. This book kind of amazing for me. The writing and the plot will just suck you in and make you relate to the story. I think Russel, being the one telling the story has a way of getting sympathy. The readers can really connect with him. And amazing job for Brent Hartinger.
Pretty likable sub-characters too. Specially Min, Gunnar, and Brian. They are well written for me and has good attributes.
I would also like to talk about Russel and Kevin. Really teenage love. It just make me,(what is the more appropriate term for giggle for males?) smile. There was a scene in the book where Kevin kind of said that he like boys who takes risk and Russel want to do that, for Kevin. For me that's okay. But sometimes when we like someone, we want to be the person they like or want that in the process we started losing ourselves too. For me, Russel made the right decision in the end. But I am hopeful for the next book.
This is the kind of book that really makes me want to read YA more.
p.s. This book made me laugh too!
Here are the lines I love from this book:
"If there was no such thing as forgiveness, there wouldn't be any friendships left in the world."
This from Russel. Near the end.
"Go on ahead. I'll be okay."
A scene in the movie I found on tumblr. This is kind of cute actually.
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“Even the ugliest place in the world can be wonderful if you’re there with good friends—just like the most fabulous destination on earth is pretty boring when you’re all alone.”
This was an okay read. I've been wanting to read this for a long time but I've tried to keep my expectations low. I've read some great LGBTQ books so far and they set the bar pretty high.
So the protagonist, Russel, was plain. He was not especially interesting or smart or brave or talented. There were a few side characters that I really liked, especially Min and Brian. But the rest was very normal. Most of the time some of them actually annoyed me. Russel made many stupid decisions, and kept repeating them. It was frustrating.
If you want to read this book and expect life tips on how it is to be gay, this will definitely let you down. It's an easy and fast read but just nothing special.
The plot was not that interesting or unusual either. All in all Geography Club was pretty much average.
Find more of my books on Instagram -
whatever, i'm still allowed to read YA, get off my back, jeez -
Audible
I'm glad that I've chosen an audio edition.
I don't really know, how an author makes a decision, who will narrate his/her book, but if Brent Hartinger HAD to make this decision by himself - he made the right one.
My first Josh Hurley as a narrator, and he is a perfect choice for this sweet, funny and enlightening YA novel about friendship, finding yourself, about first love, and...coming out. It was better than watching a movie - I lived inside the story!
Very enjoyable 5 hours! -
5 STARS!! I don’t read a lot of Young Adult, but something about the description and the book cover intrigued me. It reminded me of some of the TV shows I used to watch in my younger years... Freaks and Geeks, My So Called Life, etc. And I was not disappointed, I love love loved this book! Told entirely from Russel Middlebrook’s POV, this story is full of humor, wit and important life lessons. I can’t wait to read the rest of this series!!
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Yeah this one wasn't really working for me. Not because it was necessary bad, everything just felt very dramatic. Maybe it was the YA aspect of it but I couldn't stand most of their behaviors. They came across as younger than they are supposed to be. But Russell did have some cute moments, so that's cool.
I think I might have watched the movie years ago, but I couldn't remember it at all, so I guess that says something. -
La típica historia de instituto americano con sus dramas de popularidad mezclado con personajes que no se animan a salir del clóset. No es la gran genialidad ni aporta nada nuevo pero vaya que sirve para entretener bastante y drenar lecturas pesadas.
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Nothing spectacular or groundbreaking here. It's filled with two-dimensional characters and very special lessons. But the MC isn't an asshole and it has a decent ending. It's better than most YA, which isn't saying much.
I'd recommend this for middle school students, but with all the talk about who's having sex, and who isn't having sex, I don't think they'd care. I wouldn't have cared. And the writing is too juvenile for high schoolers despite the profanity. If you're looking for something to bump of your book list, this is a quick read. I finished it in less than two hours. I might check out the sequel if I'm bored.
Two Things I Didn't Like
1. The Token Bitch Beard
2. Sexist Closeted Jocks
Favorite Characters: Min, Brian, and Russel
Rating: 2.25 stars. It's average. It kind of reminds me of a Matt Christopher book, but with gay kids. Despite that, it's much better than Totally Joe and The Vast Fields of Ordinary. -
i randomly picked this up because it was free via Audible Plus but 'TWAS A MISTAKE 🤡
i'm sure it was a gem of a read at its initial time of publication, but age like fine wine it did not 😔 an unfortunate Kissing Booth-level of rage-inducingly cringey execution mixed with every single high school cliché you can think of for optimum superfluous drama, leaving you with nothing but the urge to bang your head on every hard surface in sight and a storm of violent thoughts towards practically every character in the book. forgive me for my crankiness but i'm salty that my beauty sleep was taken away from me 😤 -
A good story, the characters has little emotion considering the subject, but I would recommend.
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Some reviews accuse this book of being preachy, and although I agree in part I think "Geography Club" is one of the best stories in the YA GLBT genre - the kids swear, do horrible things, aren't perfect, and think about sex! Honestly, some books make them so neutered it's hard to take them seriously. It is even realistic in the fact that by the end, some have made the painful decision to stay in the closet rather than out themselves and 'live their lives, be free'. Life isn't like that for everybody, but there is enough of a positive message in there that any gay teen will still close the book feeling optimistic. I wish books like this had been around when I was in high school!
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YA. Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at his high school, but while hanging out online in a gay teen chat room, he discovers there's someone else out there, and soon gay people are popping out all over the place, though not actually out. This is a solidly mediocre contestant in the queer young adult genre. It's not an overly idealized world where gays and lesbians are accepted without question (
David Levithan, I'm looking at you). These kids have problems and aren't yet comfortable with who they are, and they make mistakes because of that. There's a lot of lying and betrayal and cruelty, and this is where the book gets heavy-handed and preachy, delivering unto us The Moral Of The Story, sometimes several times a page. It got so that I was expecting a quiz at the end of each chapter: "True or False: It is wrong to make fun of others for being different."
I liked the writing. The author has a good sense of humor and even though the first person narrator addresses the reader, it doesn't happen too often. There's some romance, even some sexual content -- the gay kid thinks about other boys' bodies! because he likes that sort of thing! -- I'm serious, I've read gay YA fiction where this doesn't happen. So the characters are, for the most part, believable, but the high school itself felt completely false, as cliche as "the jocks" or "the nerds" were. I was going to give Hartinger another chance, but from what I'm reading on Amazon, Hartinger's moralizing is a recurring problem, so I think this is it for me and him.
Two stars -- read this book if you like your gay people to stay in the closet, or if you don't understand why it's not OK to make fun of people for being different. -
Substantially better than Totally Joe. Geography Club follows the life of several teens at a medium/large high school who discover that they're not the only gay kids in school. Rather than tempting fate and public outing they start a gay kids club under the most unappealing club title they could possibly think of: The Geography Club. Obviously one thing leads to another, and some people hook up, lie to their friends, fake being straight, do terrible things to other kids to fit in, and rise and fall in popularity.
I read this book in three hours, and it was completely engrossing. I normally read VERY slowly, but to finish this in not even an entire day says something. I really liked this book, and I liked that it didn't end perfectly. Friends were made, lost, some regained, some new friends made. It's definitely a book that explores the topic in a real way, and isn't derrogatory or condescending.
If only I had the guts to do something like this in high school. -
I enjoyed this book quite a lot, made me rethink some of high school and what mindset a lot of the kids had.
Kind of sad really how stongly we want to be popular then and how little it really matters in the now.
Seems like too much work for me now!
:) -
It was such a wonderful book! I don't know if it's something really anyone would love, but I think it's likable enough, and I absolutely LOVED it. It was so cute and I could actually feel progression during the story, and I also really liked the writing, so that helped.
I'm not saying this book has many insightful moments, but it was so much fun reading it. Also, it's really short, so it's a pretty easy read. I just think that as long you like this kind of stuff (you can look in the genres for yourselves because I don't remember and I hate defining stuff), it's a pretty decent book. Well, very decent book. It's just a great book, and I've been wanting to read it for so long.
So now I'm off to watch the movie, but I really hope that my short review here will make you read the book, and that you will like it.
BTW if you don't please don't blame me, I try to be objective about this things but it's really hard. -
This book is very interesting and I really enjoy it so much.
I didn't know this book is SERIES!!!!! >,<
SAID WHATTT???? I didn't know that this book is into the movie. BUT.....I like this book best than movie because movie is OK! -
I’d like to start with this book with a confession: I would not have read this book if I had not been assigned to read a book on Gay and Lesbian Fiction. Gay rights are an important subject to me and although I have no problems with books or media on the subject, I also had no real desire to seek it out. This book, along with another gay superhero book I’ve read previously (Hero by Perry Moore) may change all of that. I loved, loved, loved this book and it has become one my favorite books this year. It tells the story about a closeted young male teenager who believes he is the only gay person in his smallish high school until he meets an anonymous teen in a chat room. They decide to meet and end up discovering three more gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers that go to their school and decide they would like to form their own support group. The book has some excellent humor to it and I liked how realistic and interesting the characters were. This isn’t a fairytale where everything will work out perfectly, the main characters don’t always make the right choices when faced with tough decisions, but one of the big themes is that we get second chances to do the right thing. One of the other main things I appreciated about this book was how it combined a coming of age story about peer pressure and climbing the high school social ladder with a coming out story about trying to stay true to your sexuality and your morals. I also liked how it gave multiple perspectives even though the story is told through a single point of view. The characters are so well done and the main character is so insightful that you really come to understand the pressures the other characters are under. One criticism I had with this book was that it feels a bit dated. The copyright date was in 2003, but from some of the technology mentioned such as using IM’s, chat rooms and emails to communicate it seems that the book is quite a bit older. The mindset of the characters seem older and less progressive as well, this could be attributed to the small-town status, but the reaction the school has when they think someone is gay seems a bit extreme in today’s world. Perhaps this is due to my own ignorance, but I feel like today a lot more adults and teens would be accepting. In summary, I think this is an excellent book. It’s informative, engaging and humorous without being preachy or depressing. It’s a book that anyone in high school can relate to because it focus so much peer pressure and social statuses and it’s interesting enough to keep the reader’s attention. Please read this if you have any interest in high school dramas or gay fiction, you will not regret it.
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Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com
Russel Middlebrook is pretty sure that he's gay. After all, he's not attracted to girls, and he spends every day after gym class studiously avoiding the other half-naked guys in the locker room. He's never had an actual experience with another guy, though, so maybe the attraction he feels toward them is something he'll outgrow--or maybe not.
While surfing the Internet one night, he finds chat rooms for different towns and cities, where you can talk to other people who are also gay. And amazingly enough, there's a boy he meets with the name GayTeen-- who not only lives in his town, but also attends his high school. Another gay boy, in his very own school? There's no way that could be true-- especially when he finds out that the kid with the handle GayTeen is none other than Kevin Land, star of the baseball team, one of the most popular guys in school.
As Kevin and Russel get to know one another, outside of school and hidden away from prying eyes, they realize that there's no way for them to be together inside school walls. The same is true for Russel's friends Min and Terese, who although they claim to just be really close friends, are actually in love. So along with a few others, including Gunnar, who is straight, and Brian Bund, the loser of Goodkind High School, the boys form The Geography Club. After all, no one else is going to want to join such a boring club--especially if they knew it was just a front for a gay/ lesbian school group.
As events at school heat up, with Brian eventually being outed as gay even though he's not, Russel, Kevin, and their friends will have to learn what's most important in life. And that sometimes, no matter how much you might wish for things to be out in the open, you're just not ready.
GEOGRAPHY CLUB is a great, quick read from author Brent Hartinger, about the ups and downs of daily high school life, and the struggle to find ones identity. -
Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves - This book is actual proof that no matter how badly written a book is, it will be made into a movie if the message is strong enough!
16 year old Russell is one of the smart intellectual. Whatever makes him intellectual, we don't know, but he sits with his best friends, Min and Gunnar, everyday at lunch. He is gay, and has really locked himself in the closet. He is so deep in he's probably talking to mr. Tuminus in Narnia for all we know.
After school one night, he logs into a gay chat room, where he meets another guy from his school. They decide to meet up, and it turns out that he wasn't, after all, the only gay teen in a school of over 800 pupils! shocker.
The autour doesn't introduce us to any of the character's parents, actually, only 3 of closer to 16 characters do have them. No one has any hobbies, Russell's own hobby seems to be lying in his bed at night, thinking about the fact that he is gay. Which I do understand, thoughts about identity is probably a big issue, but I doubt a 16 year old will bother his brain with it that much.
Everyone acts as if they are 11 years old, especially Gunnar, who constantly talks about how much he wants a girlfriend. We get no character descriptions, the only think we know about Russell is what we get from his boyfriend around page 140 or so.
" Your eyes, they're like brown, yellow and green all at once. And your hair has the colour of autumn leaves."
What does that even mean? Does he have bright red hair, with streaks of green?
I would encourage everyone to stay far, far away from the Geography Club. Seriously. Run, and don't ever look back. It's not worth it. Not at all. -
I have never rage-quit a book so fast and so furiously and I don't think I ever will again.
Right-why this book is so rage-inducing. My main problem with Brent Hartinger as an author is that his writing always feels like an episode of Zoey 101 or Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide but with more gay. Now, I loved those shows and I think it would actually be cool to have gay characters in them but that doesn't make Brent Hartinger good.
The main character shows promise in the first chapter and then as the story progresses he becomes this clingy high school girl that needs to do everything he can in order to impress and keep his boyfriend. The worst part is his boyfriend doesn't even care when their opinion differs. But does the main character form his own opinions about anything after that? Nope, not even close.
The side-characters go through the same arc of slightly entertaining to absolutely, head-bashingly annoying. Except for Ike and Belinda. A few pages after Belinda's introduction she becomes one of the most funny and endearing characters in the book and I never really liked Ike and he didn't get any worse.
The ending was the worst thing, bringing in every cliche Hartinger could think of.
There are much better LGBT young adult books out there, this isn't even funny bad. I'd strongly recommend you skip it. -
Lookie here! A rantish thing I'd written a while ago on this book...before reading it /:(
I actually don't remember reading the book and have no idea what's going on here, but I'll post it anyway.
Why is it that love of musicals and fashion equal a gay man? I didn't have a major probelm with Geography Club until this happened. Well, besides Russel continuing to go out on double dates with Trish, even though he and Kevin had become boyfriends at that point. He confesses that he is gay to a friend, who states that he already had knowlege of this because of the fact that he liked Disney musicals. WTF? Is this something I'm not getting? Should my (nonexistant) gaydar be going off every time I see a guy with a liking for Disney and a fashion sense? It's stupid if you ask me. I already know three people that "should" be gay, if such things are a sign.
Also, the thing with Trish. Russel goes out on continuous double dates with a friend who hooks him up with Trish, both before and after he gets Kevin as a boyfriend. You'd think you have the common sense to tell her that you don't want to date her. I mean, you don't even need to tell her that you're gay. Just stop leading her on. -
DNF at ...70% maybe? Didn't get around to writing this before it went back to the library, but I know I got pretty far.
YA is another one of those genres where a preference for realism will bite you in the ass. I was so disgusted by the behavior of both the love interest and the MC in the bullying storyline that I could not finish this. I skimmed, so I know redemption was coming for one of them, and I get it. I do. But hell no. The way we do high school is inhumane in so many ways. This is why I tend to avoid this type of plot. -
Similar vibes to Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, I liked it
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Geography Club is a young adult book that doesn’t feature a gay utopia but instead depicts a realistic high school with students that aren’t especially noble or inspiring. These are the types of teenagers that exist in every high school, struggling to get through the minefield of social acceptance and rejection with the added pressure of being different. There is no preaching about accepting differences but the story ends with a note of hope and the idea that high school may be horrible but you’ll get through it. This may not be a high school story you wish happened to you but it also is one that some teenagers may relate to.
The story follows several teenagers as they realize they are not alone and end up trying to form a support group for themselves. They call their club the Geography Club assuming that no one else would join something so incredibly boring. Their plan doesn’t necessarily work that well as someone does want to join and at the same time, a rumor about a gay club circulates and threatens the secrecy of Geography Club. Each teenager must decide for themselves if they want to be honest about their sexuality or not and the choice is not easy for most. In an already hazardous social climate of high school, being gay may be too much to deal with.
GC is incredibly quick to read and fast paced so the story whips along and ends almost before you know it. The teenagers all play on different stereotypes from the male jock to the lesbian field hockey player, the nerdy ones, and the outsiders. Here is a cross section of kids from popular to neutral that have very little in common usually but find the support of other gay teens incredibly helpful. They are not always likable and noble as they are often too mired in their own drama and angst to reach out beyond their group. There is the most hated and teased outsider in the school that even those in the Geography Club don’t want to reach out and help. They often make classic mistakes such as being mean, condescending, and betraying each other out of fear and petty grievances.
What makes the story really shine are that these are depictions of real high school students who don’t always do the right thing. These teenagers don’t necessarily want to come out of the closet and be honest with themselves and others just yet. Perhaps they accept their sexuality to themselves but they want to stay hidden and under the social radar. Others stand up for their beliefs and what is right. Some waffle in the middle and can’t decide which way to go, depending on peer pressure to make their decisions. These are not perfect people but teenagers learning and growing with one more issue to cope with on top of everything. This is the type of story that teenagers can relate to and realize others go through the same difficulties and they’re not alone.
The narrative is first person from Russell’s point of view, a nerdy socially neutral teen that goes through the entire roller coaster of emotion and popularity in his struggle to find his place. The descriptive quality and writing doesn’t try too hard but lets the voice of the teenagers come through very well. The high school exists in no named city or state but is meant to be a high school that could exist anywhere with bland, purposefully vague descriptions that are recognizable by anyone. Although conveying a message to readers, none of the writing is preachy or lecturing but does have a thread of hope and honesty that will appeal to readers.
Although the target audience is likely gay teenagers, the quick pace and very easy reading makes this a good book for anyone to read. The recognizable themes and lack of perfection create a book most can relate to even if you aren’t part of the target audience. If anything it will remind you that no one is alone in their struggles. I can easily recommend Geography Club as a good book to read. -
I chose Hartinger's "The Geography Club" purely as a self-indulgent piece of reading, and I was pleasantly surprised with the content. I thoroughly enjoyed the conversational rhetoric that could only be accurately replicated by someone who lived during the beginnings of the new millennium.
There were a lot of references to life in the early 2000s: the fact that they used a chat room to initiate the entire plot was oddly endearing. The novel's age adds to its light, nostalgic charm. Coming from someone in 2015, I'm excited to see internalised homophobia slowly becoming a concept as dated as using AOL. -
This one was a little thing, and a little preachy -- I suppose that I should season all my YA reviews with "I am not the target audience", but for this one and for its sequel even more than most of my YA reviews. I enjoyed it -- I found Russel an engaging character and there were parts of this book when I really felt for him, but sometimes the message Hartinger was trying to get across just pounding me in the face instead of gently tapping my shoulder.
Not a bad read, but there's better coming out YA fiction out there. -
After a number of grown-up books leading to a slight degree of melancholy, almost depression, I decided I needed a gay teen in my life. Brent Hartinger's Geography Club was waiting for me - and what a joy it proved to be! The story depicts a group of teens with typical problems, like popularity, honesty, peer pressure and the like, with exploring one's sexuality as an added element in the complexity. The narrative (Russel Middlebrook is the first-person narrator) is fairly simple, in comparison to other authors' plots, but always remains authentic and convincing. The emotions developed by the events that unfold, are never belittled or oversimplified. It is an easy read, suited for younger teens, but even enjoyable to a reader who has not been a member of the target audience for some decades now! Highly recommended - and I am very pleased to see there are three more books in the series. I can only hope they are available as e-books, unlike the first part of the series ...
(Update: They all are on Kindle, as are the three books of the second series, and the first book of a spin-off series about another character in Russel's life ... an embarrassment of riches! Needless to say: some splurging took place today ... But why not Book One? Rights issues, would be my guess.)
Selfs vir 'n ouer leser is Hartinger se verhaal oor Russel Middlebrook genietbaar. Die tienerprobleme wat hier uitgebeeld word, soos populariteit, groepslidmaatskap en eerlikheid, word gekompliseer deur die ondersoek van seksualiteit. Hoewel die verhaal redelik eenvoudig is, is dit nooit oorvereenvoudig nie: die emosies en optrede van die karakters bly oortuigend en lewensgetrou. Sterk aanbeveel. Ek sal beslis die res van die reeks (nog drie boeke) wil lees, hoewel ek hoop dat hulle (anders as die eerste boek) wel as e-boeke beskikbaar is.
(Opdatering: hulle is, sowel as die drie boeke van die opvolgreeks en die eerste boek van 'n reeks oor 'n karakter in Russel se lewe. -
Reseña de los cuatro libros.
Esto es como aquellos libros de Enyd Blyton que leía de pequeña "Los cinco".
Las aventuras y desventuras de tres adolescentes del siglo XXI con las dudas de esta época pero con las aventuras de niños de mediados del siglo pasado y unos diálogos similares a los de aquella época por lo que no funciona en absoluto ,
Tres estrellas siendo muy condescendiente. -
This was a funny, and sometimes sad, queer teen book. I definitely need to rewatch the movie now that I’ve finally read the book!
