Flyboy by Kasey LeBlanc

 

"As I feel my way through the kitchen to the stairs... I realize there's one good thing about the dark. In the dark I can't see myself." Kasey LeBlanc, Flyboy

Asher is a closeted trans boy who goes to sleep every night dreaming of a circus, where he is himself for the first time. By day, he lives his worst nightmare: Catholic School. Then one night, he's transported to his fantasy world, where dreams and reality begin to blend.

I was skeptical during the prologue. I was promised a story that was similar to The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, but the prologue wasn't just comparable, it was downright derivative. The circus is even named, "The Midnight Circus." Which, to be fair, it probably is hard to name a circus that comes only at night...

But then the story morphs into its own.

Asher lives with his mom, a nurse who is almost never home, and cared for by his ridiculously old-fashioned and super controlling grandparents. Grandparents who drag Ash to a church designed to teach him to hate himself and pay to send him to Catholic school after an incident in which he's injured. Grandparents who, after losing their son, decided to plot out every second of their granddaughter's life, right up to her career, without ever acknowledging that she's really a he. Kasey LeBlanc presents us with a world that feels so very tense and awkward, it's amazing the kid can even remember to breathe.

 The circus is a catalyst for Asher, and an addiction. It's a place he doesn't have to hide, instead he can put himself on display before an audience and not be judged. Asher becomes determined to do anything to stay. Here he begins to build his bravery, flying high above the crowd with his trapeze partner Apollo.

Apollo creates a mystery almost as big as the circus... He walks into Asher's real world classroom one day, having no memory of Asher. But Asher remembers him. And Apollo is different, having had a personality change outside the circus which leads to the question, 'what's going on here?' So you have an intriguing sublot to run alongside the mystery of the circus.

When the circus is threatened, Asher makes a series of bad choices to protect it. The thing is, we know they're bad while he's making those decisions. And the outcomes seem oddly predictable which is deeply unfortunate.

Predictability aside, this is otherwise solid writing, even if I think the plot needed a little more work. The characters are multifaceted which increases believability. This is aimed at YA which I appreciate because if literature can teach anything it might be acceptance.