Skater Boy

A closeted teen navigates family trauma, first crushes, and messy friendships in Nerada’s introspective debut. White 17-year-old Wesley MacKenzie—who has a well-deserved bad-boy reputation in Valentine, Ohio, stemming from his destructive, bullying shenanigans with his two best friends—is nearly failing senior year. He’s mostly fine with that, though, since he plans to stay close to support his mother, who recently fled his physically abusive cop father. When Wes’s mother drags him to a performance of The Nutcracker, he feels an immediate attraction to Tristan Monroe, the Black star of the show and a student at a posh private school. After Wes and Tristan start hanging out, Wes—who fears ridicule if he were to come out—anxiously looks for signs that proudly gay Tristan might like him back. But when Brad, one of Wes’s friends who is struggling with a burgeoning alcohol dependency, kisses Wes at a party, it causes a fissure in their group. Unmoored, Wes pursues his interest in photography by joining a club and launches a halting, semi-secret relationship with Tristan. Nerada sensitively depicts the lingering effects of Wes’s father’s abuse, and how the trauma from those experiences informs his complicated relationship with himself and others, as well as with opening up. Ages 14–up. Agent: Rena Rossner, Deborah Harris Agency. (Feb.)