The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw Emotional World of Male Teens

by Malina Saval

Overview

Teenage boys have come a long way since the staid 1980s when they were all lumped into the Breakfast Club categories of Brains, Druggies, and Jocks. Crisscrossing the country — meeting with boys from different cultures, and socioeconomic backgrounds — journalist Malina Saval introduces readers to the next generation of male teens by creating new archetypes and redrawing the ever-expanding social map. The Secret Lives of Boys offers an uncensored look into boyhood that reveals the spine-tingling confessions, heartrending sadness and isolation, unbridled optimism, and seemingly boundless resilience of male teens today. Saval asks the pertinent questions: Who are these boys? What do they think of themselves? A compelling and candid look at male adolescence in the twenty-first century, The Secret Lives of Boys uncovers what our young people want you to know.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465020324
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	08/24/2010
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 11.04(h) x 0.76(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Malina Saval's writing has appeared in Glamour, the Jerusalem Post, the Los Angeles Times, Heeb, Variety, Forward, RES, Moment, Unleashed, and LA Weekly, where The Secret Lives of Boys appeared first as a cover story. She lives in Los Angeles, California. www.malinasaval.com

Table of Contents

1 Introduction: Madolescence 1

2 The Indie Fuck 17

3 The Mini-Adult 47

4 The Optimist 73

5 The Troublemaker 97

6 The Gay, Vegan, Hearing-Impaired Republican 119

7 The Rich Kid 137

8 The Average American Kid 163

9 The Teenage Dad 177

10 The Homeschooler 195

11 The Sheltered One 209

12 The Future 231

Acknowledgments 243

Notes 245

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

Allison Burnett, author of Undiscovered Gyrl
“With the objectivity of a sociologist and the compassion of a saint, Malina Saval takes us on a journey into the hearts and minds of teenaged boys, letting them do what our society rarely does: speak for themselves. The trip is painful, funny, frightening, hopeful, and, ultimately, unforgettable.”

Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy
“Malina Saval's vibrant writing style and fascinating journeys into the lives of ten young boys provides parents with extremely useful information about how to help shepherd kids through adolescence in the 21st century...The Secret Lives of Boys is a must-read for people looking to understand the ‘mainspring' of this demographic which we've been so quick to write off.”

Blake Nelson, author of Paranoid Park
“A fascinating and up-to-the-second survey of that most mysterious segment of our population: teenaged boys.”

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
“Through Saval's keen observations, we're allowed to meet 10 teenage boys who are complex, insightful, thoughtful, optimistic and resilient. You can't learn that from test scores.”



Booklist
“Saval's well-edited portraits reflect real-life's nuances and messy contradictions and offer a refreshing, often-optimistic sense of male teens' strength and resilience.&rdquo

Boston Globe
“Malina Saval has been called ‘The Boy Whisperer' for her skill at getting teenage boys to open up (we need her at our house).”

Library Journal Xpress Review (online)
“Saval introduces us to ten very different teenage boys and makes a compelling case for the so-called problem with adolescent males being not the boys, but an overreliance on statistics and norms to tell their stories.”

New York Times Book Review
“[R]eal, funny and astute.... Parents, teachers and especially teenage girls will be fascinated to know that boys care about fashion, cry about girlfriends and have deep feelings. More important, they might see aspects of themselves reflected in these stories and realize, as I did, that boys aren't so mystifying ­after all.”

From the Publisher

…raw and emotional. It's also real, funny and astute…in a voyeuristic way, parents, teachers and especially teenage girls will be fascinated to know that boys care about fashion, cry about girlfriends and have deep feelings. More important, they might see aspects of themselves reflected in these stories and realize, as I did, that boys aren't so mystifying after all.
—The New York Times

Lori Gottlieb

Saval notes that the conventional wisdom about American boys is, to put it mildly, that they are in trouble: emotionally, academically, spiritually, and socially. She notes William S. Pollack's Real Boys (Random, 2000) and Daniel J. Kindlon and Michael Thompson's Raising Cain (Ballantine, 1999) as examples of how the media sees boys in the U.S. On the other hand, she cites Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia (Putnam, 1994) and Rosalind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabes (Crown, 2002) as being more balanced views of adolescent girls. For her own book, she sought to find out if teen boys really were seriously at risk, and to offer, if possible, a more nuanced portrayal of young males. On both counts, she has succeeded. Through in-depth interviews and research, she portrays the lives of 10 young males. She asked each one to name his chapter, and the titles range from "The Mini-Adult" to "The Troublemaker," from "The Sheltered One" to "The Gay, Vegan, Hearing-Impaired Republican." As comprehensive as she tries to be, she is also clear-eyed and acknowledges that "Ultimately, this book can only be one version of the truth about boys today in America." Still, it is a fascinating take on the subject, written in a clear and lively style with a useful index and interesting endnotes that can lead to further exploration.—Geri Diorio, The Ridgefield Library, CT

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