Safe, C. Kennedy

- Review by Mr Austro-Hungarian

Safe starts with Caleb, a senior, becoming frantic and searching for a boy named Nico, as he discovers that a teacher has tattled (sorry, no better word for it) upon seeing Caleb and Nico kiss at school – a peck at that. 

The story then elaborates on how their respective parents are called in to the school to ‘deal with this issue’, and how – until now – no-one knew their forbidden secret; and love that has spanned almost a third of their lifetimes. (Over a third, if you count when they first met.) Then we are taken on a ride throughout their lives together, from when they were innocent ten year olds, until present day.

Now, truth be told, I found next to nothing wrong in the story. This novella is a wonderful representation of how sweet young love can be, in a world where teenagers are becoming increasingly flippant about being in relationships for the sake of having one. The story – from where Caleb knew where to find Nico at the beginning, until Caleb then lovingly walks Nico into the school one more time at the end – had me feeling very lucky that I had stumbled upon their world, even if it was fictional. Their love oozed through the dialogue, through their actions, even though their many sexual rendezvous’.

I also found this book realistic, to sum it up in one word. Even though there were points that did seem a little mature at times – mostly to do with dialogue –

 ‘…He opened the drawer and rifled through the miscellany of objects until he found the bottle of lube. He smiled to himself. Thank God for parental lectures.’

- it wasn’t enough to detract from the enjoyment of the realism, compared to that of a standard intelligent teenage male. Even though this quote, and a few other passages, could seem rather left of centre coming from Caleb, I can forgive this. Heck, I was talking like this to myself at 15/16. The dialogue was also fairly consistent in this style, so I did not mind.

I also liked the overall 'fit' of the characters. Caleb was 5’10; Nico was 5’2. Caleb loved taking care of Nico – and oft’ referred to him as “my Nico” or “little Nico”, and Nico was portrayed as frail, with just cause thanks to an abusive father. Caleb seemed to have a stronger personality, and Nico seemed to be quieter/more reserved. Caleb was a manlier figure, whereas you always sensed Nico was slightly more feminine.

And all of these characteristics enhanced the relationship – it made it feel like something that would work not only in a book, but also in real life. They had their strengths and their (admittedly, few) weaknesses, but they played to these and complimented each other almost perfectly. Because of this, even when you might think to yourself “Goodness, they are so young to be in a relationship of this magnitude”, they have such chemistry that it just never seems wrong at any stage.

These boys were also portrayed as quite exceptional individuals. Caleb was a great swimmer, earning straight-A’s, had a good friend base and did not cop crap at school until the teacher outed him. Nico was, more or less, the same. (Sans the gift for sport.)

But is this a negative, like it often can be? No. There was never a time in this novella where you questioned if these boys were too perfect. Nico and Caleb were kind, sweet, loyal, intelligent and beautiful – but never once did you want to scream at the characters, or even dislike the characters, because of this. This is a credit to Cody Kennedy; that is a very hard thing to do, and he did it beautifully.

But, all of these reasons aside, the main reason I want to applaud Cody Kennedy for Safe is due to the handling of the sexual content within the story.

*Cue Mr. Austro-Hungarian getting on his soap box*

This novella, according to my mother, received mixed reactions when it came to the age Caleb and Nico became intimate. In the story, they partook in mutual masturbation at 13, and it explores two other forms of sexual contact from there on in. Did these sexual acts between the two protagonists seem unrealistic. Absolutely not.

As a teenager, I still remember high school and all of the tales of/actual sexual adventures and relationships at my school. For her twelfth birthday, a classmate of mine proudly demonstrated her edible underwear to the girls in my English class; my heterosexual friends started having sex (and I do not mean mutual masturbation) at 14/15, and – by 15/16 – if you were not having sex, you were in the minority.

Now, does this seem age inappropriate to you? You may choose to think so, or you may choose to think not. But the reality is that these teenage boys would have experimented with acts of a sexual nature in real life, whether or not you chose to ignore it. You can bury your heads in the sand but it doesn't make it go away.

In actual fact, the word realistic is the most appropriate word I can give to you within the context of this debate. Are there practical limits you can draw? Absolutely. I feel if anal sex was introduced too soon – or even more advanced sexual play – this particular book would have been too sexually inappropriate for a young adult audience. But it isn't inappropriate.

It went from mutual masturbation to intercrural sex and oral masturbation. They didn’t ever have anal intercourse in this book. Not once. And for this, I am almost certain that the author knows and has researched the adolescent mind very thoroughly. Knew the audience this book was aiming for. It's right. When I talk to my gay/bisexual friends and drawing from my personal experience, the median ages with which we first partook in anal sex was about 17/18; the median age for when most first started sexual exploration was 14.

Believe me when I tell you that anal intercourse, as much as social media would tell you otherwise, is a daunting thing. It is not taken lightly, and is usually performed for the first time when you completely trust an individual - of course there are exceptions to anything. As teenagers we are still often hardwired to be as safe as we can, contrary to popular opinion –

‘Caleb leaned in and saw what Nico had been reading. Abstinence Plus. “You’re studying sex education?”

‘”Yeah. My parents wouldn’t sign the consent form and, well, since we’ve done a lot of things I wanted to see what I had missed and, well, I wanted to make sure what we were doing was okay.”

‘”Is it?”

‘Yeah, we’ve been real safe, especially because we’ve never been with anybody else.”’

In a young adult book, the last thing I would want is for an adolescent to go out and perform sexual acts, just because it was in a book and they wanted to try it. This is where my feelings about anal sex between younger people come into play. As much as it can still be safe, it has more risk involved than the sexual acts explored within Safe. This is the first reason I decided to highlight this passage of the book – I thought it was a very sensible decision to add this on Cody Kennedy’s part, as this highlights that not every sexual act will come without risk.

But the second reason I added this passage to the review is the last point that I wanted to make – education and awareness is the best provision for safe sex. When I was at school, I was never made aware of what I could do with another man. In actual fact, at my school,  gay men just…didn’t exist. And if they did, they were most certainly NOT having sex. Er, WRONG!

Luckily for me, however, I had a very loving, wonderful and supportive family network around me, who knew of my sexual orientation quite early on. If I ever needed to talk to my family about sex, my mother would just talk about it like I had asked her what the weather was like on that particular day. Sex education and parents who are switched-on, books with realistic portrayals of teenage sex. All good stuff. Of course adults can stick their heads in the sand, jump up and down about books like Safe, and others out there, and just let online sexual olympics do all the talking for them. Sound good? Not really.

My heterosexual friends were sometimes at a loss as to where they could go for practical guidance about sex too. Let's face it, Sex ed is a bit clinical. My best friend, who first had penetrative sex when she was 19, had to come to me for sexual advice, hello, gay guy here, as her family would rather completely ignore the fact sex exists than talk about it. Not sensible. Not cool. Not safe.

So this is my final word of advice on this book, and on this topic. What made the relationship between Caleb and Nico so palpable – so beautiful, loving, sweet and real – was that the sex between them accentuated the way they loved each other. Caleb often thought about how Nico would feel whenever he touched him; whenever he kissed him; whenever he made him feel bliss; Nico did the exact same thing. And this was why I thought the love between Caleb and Nico took on a new level – an extra dimension that I had not yet seen in any other young adult book. (Besides maybe Rose and Dimitri in Vampire Academy).

So, for this reason, Safe gave me hope that – soon – an influx of gay young adult books will be there for any young men, or women, that need them; to turn to these books for education about what a healthy relationship can be, if their family and education ignore the existence of their desires. Let's have something other than fade off page, okay? Mother Dearest always said to me: “If you are going to do anything, I would rather know. That way, I can protect you.”

And this, along with the myriad of other reasons to love about Safe, is why I give it 5 stars.