Ellinor's Litventures
This blog is about my literary adventures in different genres. I like variety in my reading and will read books from most genres but particulary book with some literary merit.
This is by far the best YA novel on homosexuality I have read so far. While Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green is the loud version of this topic, The Center of the World by Andreas Steinhöfel is the quiet version - and in my opinion also the better one. I'm usually not much touched by homosexual relationships but here I felt with Phil so much.
The story makes slow progress: the actual story is frequently interrupted by flashbacks to past occurrences that have an influence on what is happening later. Secrets from the past are only revealred step by step and this way tension is built up. The special setting - a giant old house outside a fictional town - further contributes to this.
The language is very poetic and never flashy. This is something which always makes me immensely enjoy a novel. Here, it is also one of the main reasons for my 5-star-rating: the story itself made for a very solid 4 or maybe 4.5 rating. But I loved the language and the way the book deals with homosexuality so much that I just had to give 5 stars.