The Thousand Natural Shocks - 13 Year Old Charles (Who's Secretly Gay) Doesn't Fit In At His High School... So He Goes To Military School, and It's Even Worse... at First

The Thousand Natural Shocks by Michael Sáenz

Thirteen-year-old Charles Siskin is not like other boys. He doesn't like sports, he reads all the time and by the time he is ready to enter high school, he doesn't have a single friend. But it is more than these things that separate him from kids his own age. For as long as he can remember, Charles Siskin has liked boys.

Set apart from everyone by his odd disposition and what his schoolmates see as a distinctly feminine way of speaking and walking, he has become an outcast. In his search for a better education, and because of his need to get away from the daily torments of his peers, he talks his parents into letting him attend St. Ignatius Loyola High School, an all boys, military private school. He quickly discovers that he has removed himself from one bad situation, only to find himself in an even worse one. As he tries to navigate his way through his freshman year, he finds some protection with a group of misfit friends, in his creative writing class, and eventually begins to find some acceptance with the help of two of his teachers. But when he auditions for the spring play, he sets a series of events into motion that lead to a crushing and humiliating catastrophe.

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