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Jack Rothman is seventeen. A solid student with a talent for art, he likes partying, makeup and boys. Sometimes all at the same time. His active, unashamed sex life makes him a red hot topic for the high school gossip machine, but Jack doesn't really care too much about what the crowd is saying about him. His mantra is: 'It could be worse.'
And then it is.
When Jack starts writing a teen sex advice column for his best friend's website, he begins to receive creepy and threatening love letters. His 'admirer' is obsessed with Jack - they know who he's hanging out with, who he's sleeping with, who his mum is dating. And while they say they love Jack, they don't love his lifestyle. They want him to curb his sexuality and personality. And if he won't, they will force him.
As his stalker starts to ratchet up the pressure, it's up to Jack and his friends to uncover their identity, before their love becomes genuinely dangerous.
Author: L C Rosen
Paperback, 352 Pages, Published February 2019
Recommended by Graeme:
"This new YA novel has a storyline which is not dissimilar to Becky Albertalli’s Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (Love, Simon) - the main character Jack has a secret admirer and the mystery of who it might be keeps the reader turning the pages. Except that Jack is utterly different to Simon, who was only finding his way out of the closet and into romance. Whereas Jack is absolutely notorious at his school for his frequent hook-ups with guys and his eye-catching appearance (he likes to wear make-up). The book opens with three of Jack’s peers gossiping about him having a four-way! In fact Jack is so confident about his sexuality and sex in general that his friend Jenna enlists him to write a sex advice column for her blog. The other difference is that Jack’s admirer quickly escalates from the innocuous - You Are So Cute - into stalker territory. Pinky (as Jack calls him) knows so much about Jack’s life that it becomes completely unnerving. He knows when Jack hooks up with someone, but he even knows secret things about Jack’s mother and his friends. And as the notes become increasingly threatening, the need to uncover the guy behind it becomes more urgent. Jack of Hearts is unusual for gay YA fiction as it is very explicit about sex. The columns that Jack writes for his friend Jenna are an integral part of the book and Jack delivers really first-class advice covering subjects such as (straight) anal sex, bad blowjobs, coming out and dating, sex and intimacy, losing one’s virginity, S/M, and even asexuality. It could be argued that no seventeen-year-old could be this articulate and insightful, but that is somewhat churlish. Ultimately Jack (and author L.C. Rosen) deliver top-notch sex advice for teens in a highly accessible way. Nor is this a book merely for gay readers - the advice Jack dispenses is for girls and guys, gay, straight or uncertain.'