Hi bookworms! Today I'm chatting with Joe Jimenez, author of Hot Boy Summer! This book is about friendship, loyalty, and belonging. Stay tuned for my review coming soon. Hot Boy Summer is available now in stores.
Synopsis: Mac has never really felt like he belonged. Definitely not at home-his dad's politics and toxic masculinity make a real connection impossible. He thought he fit in on the baseball team, but that's only because he was pretending to be someone he wasn't. Finding his first gay friend, Cammy, was momentous; finally, he could be his authentic self around someone else. But as it turned out, not really. Cammy could be cruel, and his "advice" often came off way harsh.
And then, Mac meets Flor, who shows him that you can be both fierce and kind, and Mikey, who is superhot and might maybe think the same about him. Over the course of one hot, life-changing summer, Mac will stand face-to-face with desire, betrayal, and letting go of shame, which will lead to some huge discoveries about the realness of truly belonging. Told in Mac's infectious, joyful, gay AF voice, Hot Boy Summer serves a tale as important as hope itself: four gay teens doing what they can to connect and have the fiercest summer of their lives. New friendships will be forged, hot boys will be kissed...and girl, the toxic will be detoxed.
content warnings
Homophobia, mention of domestic violence
Hello Joe! Welcome to Page by Paige Books! I am so excited to chat with you today. To get things started I'd love to get to know you a bit more. Could you share 3 fun facts about yourself?
OMG. Yay for fun facts! Okay, first of all, I love love love dogs. Boxers, pit bulls, mastiffs, and xolo itzcuinlis (the Mexican Hairless dogs like from the movie Coco). Currently, we have two rescue Boxers-Harper and Sweet Baby Ray-both of whom my family adopted through the Austin Boxer Rescue. Harper is a super-major brat and a total daddy's girl who does no wrong and loves to disembowel stuffed toys. Baby Ray is the Vice President of the Goodest Boys Club for Best Behavior and Old Souls, the San Antonio Chapter. Additionally, I love pop music remixes. Ariana is my #1, and so, naturally, she's the favorite of Mac, Mikey, Flor, and Cammy, the four best friends in my new novel Hot Boy Summer. Honestly, I swoon over almost any kind of dance pop and circuit music with high bpms, big rises, and major vocals by artists like Dua Lipa, Kim Petras, Taylor, Britney, Nikki, Meghan, Cardi, and I could really go on and on. Today, my Soundcloud is giving DJs Anne Louise and Rudolfo Bravat. And for my third fun fact, I'm a sucker for semi-deep conversations with new friends while waiting in line for the bathroom at a party! It's like all the forces of the universe hit at once, and I can stand there with someone I barely know and talk about joy and love and hope and doing better for ourselves and being the people our dogs think we are, all while waiting my turn. It's kind of magical. Once in Miami, I had this great conversation about food trucks, horses, growing up in small towns, and Ada Limon's poetry with this woman I'd just met from Milwaukee. Moments like this are kind of a lot amazing to me.
Congratulations on the publication of Hot Boy Summer! What inspired you to write this story?
Thanks, Paige. I wanted to write a joyful story about what life would be like if my three bffs and I were back in high school today. I didn't have a great experience in high school, and in many ways Hot Boy Summer is my response to the bullying and hate I faced at school and at home when I was growing up. In this way, if I was 17 or 18 today, I'd have a group of gay friends and our best girlfriends to stand at my side if people walked behind me, as they did when I was in high school, talking about how they wanted to go out and kills some f*****s. For me, the heart of Hot Boy Summer is hope and belonging. Making characters who go through difficulties in life is important, sure, and I also felt a need to make characters who experience happiness and joy and connection, because that's the good stuff, the places in life where no matter how hard it may get, we can find hope waiting for us. By my desk, as I worked on HBS, I kept a post it that read: #hopeandbelonging. That was my inspiration.
The friend group in Hot Boy Summer loves Ariana Grande and her music. What would you say are your top three favourite Ariana Grande songs?
Oooooooh. I'm going with first responses only.
Can you share any insights from your writing process or personal experiences that influenced the creation of Hot Boy Summer?
I'm so very a lot blessed with having Sandra Cisneros as a mentor and guide. After I published my first novel Bloodline, Sandra invited me to dinner at the Liberty Bar here in San Antonio. While she was incredibly complimentary of Bloodline, which is a Chicanx retelling of Hamlet, she also asked why I hadn't written about my real stuff. Why I hadn't written about a gay character? Of course, I said to myself, OMG, am I being read by Sandra Cisneros?! It was a moment, for sure, and I loved it and appreciated it and I listened carefully to her feedback, because yeah, it was coming from Sandra, a literary juggernaut, and she's iconic, and also because I genuinely want to improve as a storyteller. So, I went home that night and I decided to write a really, really gay book, the gayest book I could write. The next morning when I sat at my computer, I imagined what my three best friends and I would've been like in high school, and the first lines I wrote were, "Okay, girls. Here are the rules. #1 Ariana Grande is everything. #2 Valentina is queen. And #3 Loyalty is love and love is forever." It was the start of Hot Boy Summer.
Hot Boy Summer is a story about friendship and finding a place where you truly belong. What is the main message that you hope readers take away from this book?
#hopeandbelonging That's the message I hope Mac, Mikey, Flor, and Cammy share with readers both like and unlike them. As humans, I think we all, on some level, have a need and a want to connect, to relate, to feel embraced, to belong. It doesn't matter if you're a kid or a young adult or if you're living your last, best chapters of life-I think we all carry that desire to be a part of something with someone. Friendships, family, chosen family, relationships, bonds, whatever it looks like, this process isn't always easy, and it can be messy and difficult as much as it can be joyful and bring goodness to the world. âHot Boy Summer is about the joy of finally connecting with people so that you can be yourself and not be afraid of being shunned or humiliated. For readers who already have these connections, I hope Mac, Mikey, Flor, and Cammy affirm the need to cherish and protect our chosen families and to include and welcome others, and for those who are struggling with loneliness, I hope this story offers the hope that better days are ahead, because at the end of the day, when we surround ourselves with the people who love us unconditionally, that's the good stuff-call it forgiveness, call it love, call it joy or family or acceptance or hope, it's what I think life should be like for everybody.
Thank you so much for chatting with me all about Hot Boy Summer! My last question for you is, do you have any other projects in the works that readers can look forward to?
Thanks for the love for Hot Boy Summer and for Mac, Mikey, Flor, and Cammy as they give it and live it this summer. As for my next project, I'm currently working on a novel called Everywhere He Goes. It's about a guy named Matty (who's a little bit a lot maintenance) who goes with his sister to spend the summer with their gay uncle living in a small town in Texas so that their mom can take a break. Everywhere He Goes explores intergenerational conflicts in the LGBTQ community-so many people assume we can all just get along because we have this human bond of being queer, yet, as many of us know, this isn't always the case. In particular, I'm writing about friction we experience when older members of the community feel misunderstood and even dismissed by younger queer people and vice versa, because this definitely works in both directions of the age spectrum. A personal connection I bring to the writing is feeling out of touch with a younger queer member of my family and how I feel that I've failed by not always knowing the correct language to use or how I haven't done enough to share history about the grief and suffering and losses so many of us experienced in the past in order to gain rights and freedoms we have now. It's complicated, and feelings can get hurt, and yet, at the same time, there's so much opportunity for learning, transformation, and solidarity. For me, the kind of stories I want to make reflect real things happening in our world while offering some ways that we might make the world a better place for everybody, not just for people like us.
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I had a great time chatting with Joe Jimenez about Hot Boy Summer. You can grab a copy here. What is your favourite season and why? Let me know in the comments below!
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Another month, another reading wrap-up! In April I read a total of 7 books! I ended up reading a lot of middle-grade which was a fun change, especially with so many things going on 😂. I'm currently working on reviews for many of them so stay tuned for more of my thoughts! Now let's dive in. In this wrap up I'll be providing a few of my thoughts on each book and some quotes if any stood out to me while reading. I will also be sharing my star rating out of 5.
Favourite Book This Month My favourite book I read this month was The Ballad of Darcy and Russell! It's equal parts an adorable rom-com and a journey about family. I actually binge-read this book all in one day 😂. With an adorable meet-cute, intriguing plot twists, and heartfelt moments, The Ballad of Darcy and Russell is the perfect feel-good rom-com to read this summer.
That's a wrap on my April 2024 reading wrap up! How many books did you read in April? Which was your favourite? Let me know in the comments below. |
AuthorPaige is a bookstagrammer and blogger who loves all things bookish. From fantasy to mystery she can’t get enough! She’s always ready to recommend you a book and she can talk about her favourites all day. When she’s not reading, you can find her watching Marvel movies, playing video games, and taking bookstagram photos. Visit her on Instagram and Twitter for more updates. Categories
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