This tale of gay youth in the closet is rather bland, to tell the truth. There’s bullying but Tretch shrugs it off. It’s just childish nonsense by one individual, not like hazing, food spilled, being pushed down a flight of stairs or getting subjected to beatings. Tretch doesn’t think much of his would-be tormentor and neither does the reader, at least for most of the novel.

The real meat of the plot comes from Tretch’s unrequited affections: he is in love with his straight best friend. It’s a fondness that is no more exciting than the crush a girl might have on an older boy. It’s only his homosexuality that makes it of any significance.

Tretch comes out cautiously and gradually to people he thinks he can trust but I found myself impatient with his timidity. Some gays hesitate because they’re afraid people will stop loving and supporting them. Tretch wavers even though he knows he’ll still have love and support. It’s ludicrous and makes for a total lack of suspense. When he does confess, there’s so little fanfare, you wonder why people aren’t yawning.

As a character study, the novel works well enough. But Tretch and his dilemma are so lackluster, it’s a struggle to maintain sympathy. There are more exciting stories about homosexuals coming of age. “Our Own Private Universe” is one of the better examples.

This was a sweet tale about a young gay teen dealing with being in love with his best friend. While that is definitely not a new topic in this genre, there's always something bitter-sweetly satisfying about that scenario. For the most part, I enjoyed everything. There were some sweet moments and some moments that made me cry. Occasionally, Tretch or Matt would seem a little childish (like when they made pointless, over excited exclamations about random things, considering they were 15 years old) and the author lost me a bit towards the end, but still this is a sweet read that I'd definitely recommend.

Book-loving, dance-loving Tretch has fallen in love with his straight best friend Matt. Tretch has to navigate his jealously over Matt’s romantic interest in a girl, his uncertainty over how to handle a female acquaintance’s crush, and his fears about coming out. Unlike many teenaged characters in YA fiction, Tretch felt like a real teenager, and not someone with the wisdom and experience of an adult in a younger body. This realism more than compensated for the few laughably unrealistic bits needed for plot purposes, such as a Geminid meteor shower predicted to last from precisely 10 to 11 p.m. It was also refreshing to read about functional families -- Tretch’s immediate family, Matt’s two dads, and Tretch’s grandparents -- whose members all love one another deeply and show it through words and deeds. This is a poignant, but ultimately joyful, novel about love in all its forms, the inevitability of change, and the necessity of embracing “that which is good” now.