19 Love Songs

Track One

 

Quiz Bowl Antichrist

 

I am haunted at times by Sung Kim s varsity jacket.

He had to lobby hard to get it. Nobody denied that he had talent--in fact, he was the star of our team. But for a member of our team to get a jacket was unprecedented. Our coach backed him completely, while the other coaches in the school nearly choked on their whistles when they first heard the plan. The principal had to be called in, and it wasn t until our team made Nationals that Sung s request was finally heeded. Four weeks before we left for Indianapolis, he became the first person in our school s history to have a varsity jacket for quiz bowl.

I, for one, was mortified.

This mortification was a complete betrayal of our team, but if anyone was going to betray the quiz bowl team from the inside, it was going to be me. I was the alternate.

I had been drafted by the coach, who also happened to be my physics teacher, because while the five other members of the team could tell you the square root of the circumference of Saturn s orbit around the sun in the year 2033, not a single one of them could tell you how many Brontë sisters there d been. In fact, the only British writer they seemed familiar with was Monty Python--and there weren t many quiz bowl questions about Monty Python. There was a gaping hole in their knowledge, and I was the best lit-boy plug the school had to offer. While I hadn t read that many of the classics, I was extraordinarily aware of them. I was a walking CliffsNotes version of the CliffsNotes versions; even if I d never touched Remembrance of Things Past or Cry, the Beloved Country or Middlemarch, I knew what they were about and who had written them. I could only name about ten elements on the periodic table, but that hardly mattered--my teammates had the whole thing memorized. They told jokes where her neutrino! was the punch line.

Sung was our fearless

When not writing during spare hours on weekends, David Levithan is editorial director at Scholastic and the founding editor of the PUSH imprint, which is devoted to finding new voices and new authors in teen literature. His acclaimed novels Boy Meets Boy and The Realm of Possibility started as stories he wrote for his friends for Valentine's Day (something he's done for the past 22 years and counting) that turned themselves into teen novels. He's often asked if the book is a work of fantasy or a work of reality, and the answer is right down the middle—it's about where we're going, and where we should be.

[An] optimistic reminder of the transforming power of love. Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
Deeply satisfying and emotionally resonant. Booklist, starred review

Like a good mix-tape, this book builds, flows, and transports readers. School Library Journal, starred review

While individual pieces are compelling, the book s real power lies in its collective impact and unified understanding of love as a journey to self-awareness.   The Bulletin, starred review