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    It Looks Like This
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    It Looks Like This
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    It Looks Like This
    Audiobook7 hours

    It Looks Like This

    Written by Rafi Mittlefehldt

    Narrated by Will Ropp

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In spare, understated prose heightened by a keen lyricism, a debut author will take your breath away.

    A new state, a new city, a new high school. Mike's father has already found a new evangelical church for the family to attend, even if Mike and his plainspoken little sister, Toby, don't want to go. Dad wants Mike to ditch art for sports, to toughen up, but there's something uneasy behind his demands. Then Mike meets Sean, the new kid, and "hey" becomes games of basketball, partnering on a French project, hanging out after school. A night at the beach. The fierce colors of sunrise. But Mike's father is always watching. And so is Victor from school, cell phone in hand. In guarded, Carveresque prose that propels you forward with a sense of stomach-dropping inevitability, Rafi Mittlefehldt tells a wrenching tale of first love and loss that exposes the undercurrents of a tidy suburban world. Heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming, It Looks Like This is a novel of love and family and forgiveness-not just of others, but of yourself.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781522656029
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for It Looks Like This

    4/5

    57 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This one didn't really work for me. Part of it was that there were no quotation marks around any dialogue, and there was a lot of dialogue. That may be because I received an ARC. Mainly, the biggest issue that I had was that I did not feel connected to the main character at all. Despite it being told from a first person POV, I felt that the reader never really gained any insight into Mike's thoughts and feelings. The other issue that I had was the messages the book "kinda sent". At points it seemed as though Mike's homosexuality was being "blamed" on an emotionally unavailable father. Religion seemed to take a pretty big hit as being intolerant, and the counselor at camp came off as religious, but in denial of his own homosexuality and perhaps a pedophile. Yet none of these issues is explored in great depth. At least Mike is getting counseling at the end, but what about the bully? Victor seems in need of some counseling himself. I feel that this could have been a much better work had there been more depth. Loved Toby (although I kept getting the sister [Toby] confused with the dog [Charlie])! She was by far my favorite character.
    • 4/5
      It is tough for me to review this book, because it made me very angry. But not because it was a bad story, or problematic... the fact is, it made me angry because of how true it is and can be in our world.It Looks Like This focuses on Mike, a high school freshman who is just starting to figure out himself. He's grown up in a conservative Christian household with a strict father, a caring but quiet mother, and a kickass little sister (Toby, who is my favorite). As Mike starts to discover his sexuality, the world, it seems, conspires against him.This story hit close to home for me, because I grew up and went to school and church with families like these. So concerned with appearances that they didn't think of what their children might be going through. This story was very well-written and captures that feeling of being trapped by others' expectations, and how a young man learns to think for himself despite all that.
    • 5/5
      What a powerful, well-written debut! While it took a while for me to get used to the lack of quotation marks with dialogue, this story grabbed my attention very early. Mike and his family (Mom, Caroline, Dad, Walton, and sister, Toby) move from Wisconsin to Virginia just in time for Mike to start school as a freshman. With the typical pressures of entering high school come the other pressures from his father - play more sports, make new friends, come to church more often, stop being soft - and Mike's sexual awakening. He finds himself attracted to a slightly older boy who joins his French class after the term begins. Sean intrigues him. Sean offers to work together on their class project. Sean's parents travel for church frequently, leaving him on his own sometimes.As they get to know each other, their attraction grows. Mike's relationships with his family, other friends, and the bullies in school are all affected by this new person in Mike's life. Mike's relationships with his father and his younger sister are especially well-defined. Mike grows up fast as he moves from fourteen to fifteen years old. He learns about love, hate, inconsideration, disgust, judgement, hope, change, and consequences.The author gives Mike an eye for the details around him - the tiny things that happen as a person pauses mid-bite at dinner, the colors changing as the sun rises, the specific parts of a person's face and body. Making Mike artistic adds to the depth of the characterization.I'm unsure that I am able to fully write about my thoughts on this story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it - even the uncomfortable sections - but may need to reflect further and edit this review.
    • 4/5
      Mike and his family move from Wisconsin to Virginia for his father's new job. Mike isn't thrilled, as he's in high school, but the family is used to doing what Mike's overbearing father desires. Quiet Mike, who loves art more than sports, doesn't fit in well with his religious family, or with a lot of the boys at his school. Quickly, he finds himself being bullied by several kids at school and pressured by his father to join a school sports team. But Mike finds comfort when he meets Sean, another kid at school, and the two become fast friends. However, other people at school have an eye on the pair's friendship, too.

      This book is heartbreaking in many ways, but hard to describe without completely ruining the entire plot. It's a lovely gem of a LGBT book. It's difficult to read: the dialogue is all jammed together (no quotation marks, for example) and in my ARC, there wasn't even a space between the start of a new section of thought. Once you get used to that, it's easier to read, and you get into the flow of Mike's thoughts. Tension builds slowly, as you learn more about Mike, his life, and his inner thoughts and desires.

      I wish this book could be standard reading for gay youth--and their parents. It's poignant and truthful, albeit it hurt my heart in many places. I don't typically seem to read a lot of YA novels with male narrators, but this is the second I've picked up recently, and it blew the other one out of the water. I quickly grew fond of Mike, whom I wanted to take in, and I loved his spunky younger sister, Toby. Mike's never-ending need for detail grows old at times (just get on with story already), but this is still a worthy read, and certainly a great tale for LGBT youth. It definitely affected me deeply.

      I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley (thank you!); it is available everywhere as of 9/13/2016.
    • 3/5
      Sigh. Another book that I could have loved. Here's the truth, I didn't really notice the lack of quotation marks. I mean, I did, from time to time, but as for them being totally absent from the book, it didn't impact me. It was certainly a stylistic choice, but the author had made several of those, in my opinion, and it all went along with his spare writing style. What was good (to me): Toby. She's an excellent character. Clearly knows that her brother is gay from the get-go, and stands up to protect him, from every quarter. A few of the scenes between Mike and Sean, where they are crossing that line from buddies just messing around (humans are inherently tactile), to becoming romantic partners. The descriptions of that ache, that sense of falling, that was really beautiful and poignant. The descriptions of the freshman boys at lunch. What was troubling/annoying/bad (to me): The parental characters. The religious aspect felt oddly overblown. Mike's dad sending him off to "conversion camp", it just kind of felt flat to me. The pastor at conversion camp who seemed like a closeted homosexual and possible pedophile. (Possibly quite an accurate depiction, but much of those descriptions just felt forced to me). The interaction between Mike and the state trooper, and him learning of the tragedy, just felt bizarre. The art teacher who was, to quote Mike, a "dick" was too much of a caricature to me. (Several of the characters seemed to fall prey to that - especially the church friend who liked porn). I think the author had an interesting story, and though it bothered a lot of people, I didn't mind the tragedy so much. Life is often tragic. And confusion and fear causes much of it. (I actually liked the interaction between Mike and Sean's parents at the funeral). But overall, much of the story fell flat for me. Not enough development, where development was needed. Too much focus on things that threw the rest of the story out of focus. Definitely needed more Toby! It was a good first effort, and an interesting/important story, but could be something magical if tweaked a little.
    • 3/5
      I love anything to do with the intersection of queerness and Christianity, so I was really excited to read this--but it was so disappointing! So many things bothered me: the flat writing style, the lack of quotation marks around dialogue, the unoriginality (a word?) of the plot. "Angry evangelical parents send their queer kid to conversion therapy camp" has been done. If this is the story you want, try The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth, or even The Summer I Wasn't Me by Jessica Verdi. At least those are more original, and the characters are actually developed.And why do so many books about gay kids have to be tragic? This one was so chock full of terrible things, it felt contrived--but at the same time, since the characters were so flat, I didn't feel much.The saving grace of this book is the MC's little sister, Toby, who is fantastic. I love her and Mike's relationship and the way they take care of each other.
    • 4/5
      This book was tragic, not in a shattering, explosive way, but in a slow, simmering way. From the first page you can feel the tension of the narrator, Mike. As you get into this story, you can feel the constant unease of his life, which gets worse as the story builds. Mike is gay, a fact that is obvious even to his family, but their religious, close-minded ideals means they can't accept, or even acknowledge it. Even Mike tries to live his life in an oblivious, obedient way, until he meets Sean, and eventually his old sense of self changes. You know these boys don't face a happy ending, but you really want them to have one.What I liked best about the book were the characters. There weren't as many "good" ones as you wanted there to be, but all of them were well written. Rafi Mittlefehldt did a great job of showing the small moments of cruelty, and the small mercies. No one changes fundamentally, which makes sense, since most people who are raised with a certain ideal wouldn't change their entire belief system over the course of a fairly short book. In a way this makes the book sad, but it also makes the book realistic, which I also liked.The only thing that kept this from being a five star book was Mike's confrontation with his bully at the end. In a book of so much truth, this scene felt false.
    • 2/5
      Ugh. So much potential but it was boring. I gobble up all the drizzle in this genre but this story was slow and matter-of-fact. As if it were rolling out a newsfeed on the more irrelevant, unimportant and boring current events. You trudged through it. A moment here and there lent hope that the storyline would materialize as slow but worth the wait, gripping and emotional and palpable. But.....There was no turmoil or depth; it wasn't relatable, it wasn't funny enough to laugh out loud, the characters weren't likeable enough to be invested in. It wasn't just plain terrible. I wanted to like this story. I tried, a solid convicted effort on my part to enjoy this story. I searched for deeper meaning or context. But it wasn't there. It's just not a great story. It's not a new story. The characters aren't gripping, it's hard to care about their unwritten futures or the pages and pages and pages ugh before you. It just didn't hit. It's a no for me. Skip this, save a few hours.
    • 5/5
      This is a really good story. Heartfelt, dramatic and authentic. I don’t want to give too much away, but the depiction of the characters, family relationships and the conflict between growing up and religion was acutely drawn. I found parts of the story very moving. Gosh! I need to now check out other books by this author.
    • 4/5
      I received a free advanced copy of this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program in exchange for an honest review.I’m not sure what I was expecting going into this book. I wasn’t truly anticipating it being good or bad particularly. I had finished a very dry history book and decided that I needed some fiction in my life to lighten it up. Since this had recently come in the mail, I decided to give a shot in anticipation of writing this review.It Looks Like This exceeded my (undecided) expectations. I felt an instant connection the narrator, although some of that relies on personal circumstances such as his being from Wisconsin, my home state. He was reliable, though, and truthful. I’ve read books where I don’t care for the protagonist at all and it either causes me to quit or be miserable for the duration of the book. This wasn’t the case for Mike. I really liked him. I really cared about him.Before I started, I had seen some people complaining because Mittlefehldt chose not to use any quotation marks with his dialogue. Quite a few reviewers across various sites had remarked that this annoyed them. I, however, actually really liked it. For some reason, writing it this way changes the tone of the narrator’s voice in my head. I don’t know how to explain it - it felt more hushed, more like he was confiding in me. I can see where it might be difficult to read for some people, but I got into the swing of it rather quickly. I don’t know - I think the stylization was well-executed.However, I had one thing that bothered me. I was aware in advance that the narrator was gay and this book revolved around his figuring that out, experimenting with it, and ultimately having to deal with his religious family about it. Okay. So I feel like that influenced my perspective. The narrator hints at his feelings in the beginning and I felt like I needed to grab his shoulders, shake him, and ask him if he really didn’t know what was going on. He seemed surprised. But I wasn’t. I felt a little frustrated with his holding back from it and dancing around it. It went from zero to one hundred real quick. But this was early on and ceased to distract me once things got going.That being said, it made me ugly cry. So that’s impressive.
    • 4/5
      I received a free advanced copy of this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers giveaway in exchange for an honest review.This book deals with issues faced by some LGBT teens in what I felt was such a realistic way, that the storytelling was almost too real for me at times in the beginning...I wanted more that just a detailed account of the main character Mike’s day to day life. It's also a little odd that there’s no quotation marks around dialogue. This is until I realized the importance of that realism because the story (sadly) reflects how some families with LGBT teens think, feel, behave, etc. As it went on, Mike’s story of discovering his sexuality, which conflicts with the religious beliefs of his family, became heavy and sad in a way that real life is sometimes. This book might be good to give to a LGBT teen or someone who knows a LGBT teen who is facing negative reactions after coming out to family and friends (at least for them to know they are not alone). Thankfully, despite all the heartbreaking trauma that happens to Mike, there are some allies that shine through in the story (like his sister) and there’s also a positive ending that gives some hope to the situation.
    • 4/5
      I had a difficult time getting into this book. The author choose to tell readers what was taking place and honestly, my first thought was that it read like a journal from someone who could memorize what people said. The second thought was w feeling of being left down and disappointed that as a reader, the author didn't know how, or perhaps had little faith in getting me to come to the conclusion(s) he desired.However, once I got used to the odd style, I found this book to be a book with some valuable lessons packed away. It also showed what can happen when intolerance occurs. This book tackles a lot of big issues that I won't get into. All I will say is give this book a fighting chance. You just might surprise yourself.