The Road Home by Rex Ogle - OPTIONAL

The Road Home by Rex Ogle, 272 pages. MEMOIR. Norton Young Readers, 2024. $19

Language: R (45 swears, 50 “f”); Mature Content: R (drugs, gay sex talk, body parts); Violence: R (rape lightly described, beating and aftermath)

BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL

APPEALS TO: SOME

Now 17yo, Rex is kicked out of his house by his Christian father when his stepsister outs him as gay.  Feeling he has no one else to turn to, Rex heads to New Orleans, following a man he met at the beach recently.  Though the man takes him in and they start a physical relationship, Rex is not comfortable with his new status as part of a gay relationship and eventually finds himself back on the street.

The third of Ogle’s short memoirs follows Rex into close-to-adulthood, into homelessness, into despair. Much darker than his previous books.  Please don’t buy this thinking you need all three in the series.  The content and topics are much more mature than anything in the previous two books. We have some kids who will benefit greatly from this, though.

Cindy, Middle School Librarian, MLS