Full review at http://yannabe.com/2010/02/17/review-...

Summary: After 17-year-old Ben’s dad announces that he’s gay, Ben rebels by skipping school and doing drugs. Then his dad decides they’re moving from the city to a small town in Montana. Trying to fit in while sporting a mohawk turns out to be the least of Ben’s problems.

Review: I wanted to love this book. I did love several aspects of it, and I am glad I read it. But it wasn’t one of my favorites.

What I loved:

* The grit—The tough conversations between Ben and his dad were so real they were almost painful to read at times. In a good way.
* The issues—Homophobia, child abuse, abandonment. The book takes on big-ticket issues with a capital I, but it didn’t feel like a thinly veiled morality play.
* The funny—Here, Ben is about to go on a date with a country girl, and he’s asking his dad’s boyfriend Edward for advice. Edward starts off with what he knows about the girl’s dad:

“If I remember correctly, he’s a very harsh man, and one not to cross.” He thought for a moment. “Yes sir, no sir, thank you, please, nice to meet you, Mr. Johan, firm handshake, look him in the eye, and for God’s sake don’t eye her boobs, even accidentally, unless you’re at least a mile from the house. Men have shotguns for a reason around here.”

I nodded, soaking it all in. Fear gripped me, but love would climb any mountain. “One more thing.”

“What?”

“What is baling hay, anyway?”

He laughed. “And you thought you worked hard yesterday. Poor child.”

“Crap.”

But here are the things that got in the way of me loving this book through-and-through:

* Backstory frontloading—The first chapter was s-l-o-w. I almost put the book down. I once read a tip in a writing book that you should cut your first chapter, start with the second, and sprinkle the first chapter backstory in later only if necessary. This book might have benefited from that trick.
* Internal monologue—Not everywhere, but in certain spots I felt like I was getting Ben’s entire thought process.
* Melodramatic tendencies—As the story started to wrap up, a few scenes came off as a bit cheesy for my taste.
* Kiss offscreen—Maybe this is just because I’m a girl that this bugged me, but the first kiss between Ben and the girl he’s interested in happened…offscreen! It’s this offhand comment in the narration. Bummer!

None of these issues were huge, but they all pulled me out of the story and got in the way of me connecting on a deeper level to the book. ( )

This is a really great story.
It greatly shows the struggle of having gay parents.
A really interesting story. ( )

This is a great story about the ups and downs of a father son relationship.
Mrs Grabill ( )

Reviewed by Sally Kruger aka "Readingjunky" for TeensReadToo.com

Life was going along just fine for Ben Campbell until he hit fourteen. That was the year his father announced that he was gay and his mother left. His dad's boyfriend moved in, and Ben started counseling -- and also misbehaving.

Now, after three years of run-ins with the law, Ben's dad has decided the only way to save Ben is to leave Spokane. At age seventeen, city boy Ben finds himself living in Rough Butte, Montana. Edward, who Ben calls Momdad, has agreed to take them back to the hometown he left when he was Ben's age. In Rough Butte, Ben is surrounded by homophobic cowboys, Edward's acid-tongued mother, Miss Mae, and an abusive neighbor with a strange young son.

Used to doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants, quickly ends for Ben as Miss Mae schools him in acceptable country behavior. She expects respect and hard work, and she doesn't hesitate to use her wooden spoon as a weapon to encourage it. Ben reluctantly falls in line and even finds it rewarding at times. His father and Edward seem pleased for the most part, and his improved attitude and behavior are useful in his quest to attract the attention of the beautiful girl living just four doors down the street.

There are still frustrations for Ben. Completely forgiving his father for trashing his life back in Spokane is proving harder than he expected. Rough patches between father and son keep tensions high, and to complicate matters, Ben becomes convinced that the young neighbor boy is the victim of dangerous abuse. Ben's efforts to seek justice for the boy create a whole new set of problems.

It is almost impossible to turn the pages fast enough in THE LAST EXIT TO NORMAL. Michael Harmon's protagonist is one-of-a-kind. Readers will root for him one minute and against him the next as they experience his struggle to accept what life has dealt him. Harmon has truly captured the torrent of emotions raging along that divide between boyhood and manhood. Don't miss this one! ( )

I picked this book becuase I wanted to read some teenage angst and rebellion; however, there's hardly any angst and rebellion in the book. There's about 1 or 2 lines of a boy who "hangs out with the wrong crowd." Michael Harmon needs to learn the concept of "show, don't tell" and an editor was desperately needed.

On the flip side, the idea of a gay parent struck me. Most young adult books about being homosexual deal with the youth's homosexuality, rather than the parent's. This stark difference was the only shining light in the book. ( )