I read Riley Weaver Needs a Date to the Gaybutante Ball and here are my thoughts

 

Today I’m talking about Riley Weaver Needs a Date to the Gaybutante Ball which, I’ll be honest, I knew about because I read Jason June’s other book, Out of the Blue, and loved it. It was one of my favourite books in the year I read it, so it only made sense I’d read June’s next book.

The blurb says that femme, gay teen podcaster Riley Weaver has made it to junior year, which means he can finally apply for membership into the Gaybutante Society, the LGBTQ+ organisation that has launched dozens of queer teens’ career in pop culture, arts, and activism. The process to get into the Society is a marathon of charity events, parties, and general gay chaos, culminating in the annual Gaybutante Ball. The one requirement for the ball? A date. Then Riley overhears a superstar athlete, Skylar, say that gay guys just aren’t interested in femme guys or else they wouldn’t be gay. Riley confronts Skylar and makes a bet to prove him wrong: Riley must find a masc date by the time of the Ball or he’ll drop out of the Society entirely. Riley decides to document the trials and tribulations of dating while femme in a brand-new podcast. Can Riley find a fella to fall for in time? Or will this be one massive – and publicly broadcast – femme failure?

So Riley explains on this podcast, in the beginning, the journey that will be to follow him as he hits the main tenets of Dragula (The Gaybutante Society) which were mentioned above in the blurb. And speaking of gay chaos, the society start off with chaos right from the off, they announce the Mountain Pass brand of the recruitment through a whole drone display in Riley’s high school, like you do casually and safely, saying where the first meeting for the hopefuls will be. Riley and his bestie, Sabrina, both want to join, so they head off to the meeting. Their other bestie, Nick, goes with them, despite the fact he doesn’t want to join.

For a chunk of drama, in the second chapter, when Skylar says what he says about gay guys not wanting femme guys, because they wouldn’t be gay – which is an insane statement when you think about it. You’re saying they wouldn’t be gay for not wanting a femme guy… Mary… Anyway, since the two made the bet that Riley had to find a masculine guy to ask him to the ball – it specifically had to be a masc guy that asked Riley, Riley couldn’t just go with a masc guy – I presumed this was going to be something that caused more conflict down the line. My very first thought was that perhaps Riley was going to find a masc guy and the two would sort of get together, or at the very least be in the opening stages of getting together, and then the bit would land that there was a bet all along. I was expecting that to happen.

Riley’s family also has ties to Mountain Pass, like his mother is the mayor of the town, and he has been offered this position, or all but offered this position, that is basically when he gets a relevant university degree and when the currently person retires, he’ll overtake the local radio station. But Riley is one of those people that has big dreams, very much the kind of big dreams that you’d see in a coming of age film or book, one where he has dreams bigger than his home town, so he does also struggle with the fact that he feels like if he doesn’t win this bet then he’ll be stuck in his hometown forever.

I kind of got the vibe that for a good chunk of the book that Nick was into Riley. Like, no matter what went on, I did kind of think that the two of them were going to end up together, despite what the two of them did throughout the book. I don’t know, I just thought it would have been a good play on the whole trope of love being there right in front of you, or it being in the place you’re not looking for it. Especially since out of the friend group, obviously Riley and Sabrina were both going for the Gaybutantes whereas Nick wasn’t, while he was still producing Riley’s podcast. So, there was something that was still something that tied him to the other two, but specifically Riley.

So I love a good character that sucks. And when I say sucks, I mean one that sucks for a reason and isn’t just a bad person. When the conflict and drama of this book comes around, you get to see some of the full crustiness of Riley and Sabrina. I’m not in on this post to pick sides between the two of who I thought was right or wrong, but wow… did they both say some absolutely foul stuff to each other. I can’t lie when I say that some of the things that the both of them dragged each other for were both correct. Like, they both got each other good for actual reasons. The things that both of them were saying to each other, on some level, were correct – despite how foul they were.

Something separate I have to say is that I think I just really like Jason June’s writing style. Out of the Blue is one of my favourite books and it was one of my top books in the year that I read it. June is another one of those, I kind of think he sits in the same kind of lane as Robbie Couch. It’s where the writing style and tone, to me, feels very conversational, and sounds (or reads) very much in the same way that a person talks. There definitely were a couple of sections of this book that kind of made me feel like maybe this book could be good for a person just coming into their queerness or their femme-ness. Maybe not even coming into it, but maybe even someone who has just realised that they were queer, because as Riley was coming to terms with the things he had to work through with himself and in his femme-ness, I felt like it could have been a lot of good things for someone in a similar vibe of situation. But as someone who’s a little older and is more okay with who they are, it sort of felt like I was stood at the side watching someone teach someone younger.

Mountain Pass, the town this book is set in was said to be this tourist-y spot for LGBTQ+ people, so sort of like Palm Springs in a way, but also that it really only had a permanent population of around 10,000 or so. At least I think it did. But one thing I was thinking about while I was reading this book was, “Where is Riley getting all of these flashy clothes from?” I know his mum was mayor, so she must have had some kind of pull, and perhaps a decent salary. But also, Riley didn’t have a job. So, it did make me wonder where all of Riley’s outfits came from. Did he order them online or something? And if he did, where did he get all the money from? I realise that’s not something I really need to be thinking about, but I definitely found myself thinking about it.

Anyway, that’s it. I think out of Jason June’s book, I still prefer Out of the Blue, but that was one of my favourite books in the year that I read it, so that did immediately mean any other of June’s books had still competition. Regardless, I still really liked this and would definitely recommend giving it a read.

Okay, bye!