Honestly Ben Read online

  So many to thank … Great appreciation to:

  The hundreds upon hundreds of fans who took the time to email or message me on social media about your absolute need for a sequel. This book wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for you!

  Marty Cornelissen and Kim Moore for showing me Alton, New Hampshire, and life on an Alton farm. Sorry for all the ridiculous questions and thanks for your patience!

  Patrick Jackson, the original “Are you in, or are you out” slam poet.

  My great beta readers, Joey Avalos, Kameron Martinez, Anthony Isom, Josh Horton, and Logan Moreno. Your enthusiasm and smart comments really helped.

  Brent Hartinger, my writing buddy, who is always there with the kind and useful critiques that save me from being boring (bye-bye, hazing plot!).

  Erin Jade Lange and Amy Dominy for the smart critiques.

  Lisa and Matt McMann and Tom and Joy Leveen for the wonderful support and friendship. Love you all.

  Kail Overstreet and all the wonderful people at TYME and Just Us at the Oasis Center in Nashville, who helped me understand gender fluidity better than I had before. I’m still learning, and I hope I did you proud!

  Mike Graham, who helped me turn things around when I was struggling, and who introduced me to the ideas of Brené Brown. When Hannah talks about a woman who writes about vulnerability, she’s referring to Brown. To read more about these ideas, I strongly suggest Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection. And to Dr. Brown, who fundamentally changed me for the better: Thank you so much for all you do.

  My loving family. My father, who is always there with a (tragically bad) idea; my mother, who is my biggest fan; my sister and brother, who love me as I am and encourage me to keep going forward; my Karen and Sam, and even Finn, who should never have garnered the name Cousin Oliver; my Mabel and Buford, whom I love so dearly; and my Chuck, the original Ben, who is my life.

  My Scholastic family. My editor, Cheryl Klein, who repeatedly had to ask, “Is that what you think ‘repressed’ means?” You soften out my roughest spots and magically seem to bring out my best, every time; Arthur A. Levine, for your encouragement and friendship; Lizette Serrano, Jennifer Abbots, Lauren Festa, Tracy van Straaten, Christine Reedy, Emily Heddleson, Michelle Campbell, and Antonio Gonzalez. You are the best team possible, all of you!

  My agent, Linda Epstein, who is a friend and a passionate advocate and without whom I would not have this career. Thank you so much for everything.

  And to everyone out there who is on a left-handed path. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Keep rumbling with your truth. You are all extremely badass.

  Bill Konigsberg is the author of The Porcupine of Truth, which won the Stonewall Book Award for Young Adult Literature and the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Children’s/Young Adult; Openly Straight, which won the SCBWI’s Sid Fleischman Award for Humor; and Out of the Pocket, which won the Lambda Literary Award. He is the Writer-in-Residence at the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, where he coordinates the Your Novel Year online certificate program. Prior to writing novels, Bill was an award-winning sports writer and editor with the Associated Press and ESPN.com. He lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his husband, Chuck Cahoy, and their two Labradoodles, Mabel and Buford. You can find him online at www.billkonigsberg.com and at @billkonigsberg.

  Copyright © 2017 by Bill Konigsberg

  All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and the LANTERN LOGO are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Konigsberg, Bill, author.

  Title: Honestly Ben / Bill Konigsberg.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., 2017. | Companion to: Openly straight. | Summary: Ben Carver returns for the spring semester at the exclusive Natick School in Massachusetts determined to put his relationship with Rafe Goldberg behind him and concentrate on his grades and the award that will mean a full scholarship—but Rafe is still there, there is a girl named Hannah whom he meets in the library, and behind it all is his relationship with his distant, but demanding father.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016008865| ISBN 9780545858267 (hardcover : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Gay teenagers—Juvenile fiction. | Homosexuality—Juvenile fiction. | Identity (Psychology)—Juvenile fiction. | Preparatory schools—Massachusetts—Juvenile fiction. | Fathers and sons—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Gays—Fiction. | Identity—Fiction. | Sexual orientation—Fiction. | Preparatory schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Massachusetts—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.K83518 Ho 2017 | DDC 813.6 [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016008865

  First edition, April 2017

  Jacket art and design by Nina Goffi

  Character art © Sabri Deniz Kizil, used under license from Shutterstock.com

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-85831-1

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