Guide Mentor

Character Role Analysis

Music

Yes it's an unconventional choice, but go with us here. Some stories have a clear mentor: Harry Potter has Dumbledore, Luke Skywalker has Yoda, and Wolverine has Professor X. Those are obvious. But sometimes you don't have anyone to teach you how to cast a spell or use a light saber, and you have to save yourself. Enter: music.

To name just a few examples, Noah teaches Paul how to paint the music of Chet Baker, Paul uses 80s dance band Erasure as his ticket to Elsewhere, and DJ Zeke spins the rhymes that get Paul and Noah together and back together. The chapter Cemetery Gates is named after the 1986 Smiths song, and much of the music Levithan references was popular during that time period.

It makes sense—the author was a gay teenage boy in the 80s, so of course we're going to hear at least a passing reference to The Smiths and Depeche Mode. When we feel alone—which Paul spends much of the book doing—we find comfort in songs that tell our life stories.