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Disclaimer: I have read this book of my own volition and acquired it with my own money.  Any and all opinions and interpretations contained herein are my own.

The Spoiler Report is a recounting of the major events of the novel mixed with my own interpretation of the meaning and symbolism of events, emotions, and actions. Reading this report is NOT a substitute for reading the actual novel and should not be taken as such. Not every single detail, feeling, and event is divulged herein. It is essentially a lengthy outline of the story. Many details and all dialogue have not been included. This report is for those who appreciate knowing what happens or feels they may miss things when reading, or just want to have a detailed overview of a book before, or during, reading.

****THIS REPORT CONTAINS SPOILERS****  

This is not a book review. For a complete review visit this post

Jay, a 17-year-old boy from a small town, has a pretty acceptable life. A best friend, parents that love him, and a bit more privilege than many in the town’s failing economy. The only thing missing is being completely honest about who he is – gay. Coming out to his parents, though stressful, was met with love and acceptance. Most of his small-town high school accepts him as well. But true to reality, there are the few that outwardly tell him that they do not agree with his lifestyle choice. But never escalates from there.

Jay had hoped that coming out would encourage others to follow suit. It did not. Jay is the only gay. In the entire town. At least the only one willing to admit to being a member of the LGTBQ+ community.

Longing to be an active part of LGTBQ+ community and culture and begin living his best life, Jay does what he does best – writes a list. A list of things that he wants to accomplish as a gay man. A gay agenda. The list includes everything from simply meeting another gay guy and holding hands to losing his virginity.

By the time his senior year of high school rolls around, he is still the only LGTBQ+ person in the small town of Riverton.

But the annual Hoe Down dance at his school is something to look forward to. The one him and his best friend, Lu, attend every year together and subsequently win the costume contest. A three-year tradition that is the silver-lining of his year. Until he finds out that she will be taking her new college boyfriend, Chip. But she still wants Jay to tag along. Not completely able to let go of that comfort blanket.  Besides, her and her aunt really need the money from winning the costume contest as they are not as fortunate as Jay and his family.

Coming home from school one day, Jay finds his dad has lost his job but is surprisingly cheerful about it. It isn’t until his mom comes home that his demeanor makes sense. She got promoted to District Manager of Fresh Saver grocery stores which means that the family will be moving to Seattle, WA.

After the shock of moving right before his senior year wears off, Jay is ecstatic. Seattle. A place that is guaranteed to have way more than one LGTBQ+ member. The prospect of beginning to cross items off his Gay Agenda has him vibrating with excitement. 

Telling Lu wasn’t as bad as he thought. They made plans for him to come back to attend the Hoedown.

Leaving Riverton, Jay isn’t that sad. He never really felt like he belonged there anyway. He is ready for Riverton to be out of sight, out of mind. On the drive to Seattle, Jay makes a new Gay Agenda – Seattle based.

Jay immediately falls in love with the eclectic vibe of his new school. He is so absorbed in his own awe, he is blindsided and pushed to the floor – accidentally. That is how Jay meets Albert Wong. His first VSB – very sexy boy. Immediately Jay is a smitten kitten.

The rest of the day is spent trying to fit in as best he can while battling new-kid syndrome. It isn’t until a wet flyer literally assaults him that his ray of sunshine can be felt – a flyer for the QSA club.

Entering the QSA meeting, the first face he sees is Albert! Too shy to approach, he sits at a desk away from Albert. Enter Max Knudsen (K is not silent). He is flamboyant and fabulous. A person Jay feels is quickly heading toward best friend territory. Max has even heard of Jay’s hometown and immediately commiserates.

Jay lets a mention of his agenda slip and Max jumps all over it. After explaining it, Max takes it as a personal challenge to usher Jay into his new, gay, life by helping him cross off agenda items.  The pair of them win the election for QSA presidents. The first item on the QSA agenda – homecoming. An event Jay hopes will be the beginning of his gay life.

He skypes with Lu as soon as he gets home to fill her in on all the exciting things that have happened in the span of two days. His excitement balloon pops as soon as he learns that Lu had a fight with Chip. The upcoming Hoedown and Jay as her date is the only thing keeping her spirits from crashing down. Of course the Hoedown is the same day as Homecoming. Something Jay lies about. It is now the battle of the Hoes.

The next day, Max and Jay walk into their fashion design class as a football player, Damon, approaches Max with concern. It’s the second time someone has asked Max about his well-being with the same type of consideration hinting that he recently went through something major in his life.

Their fashion design class is filled with football players. It started as a joke but turned into a very real challenge amongst the team members. Along with the team, Jay and Max, there is one ‘difficult boy’.  Reese. Jay quickly learns that not all gays automatically get along.  During class, Jay learns from Damon that Max had a particularly brutal breakup and everyone was worried about him since Max has been freezing all his friends out. As they notice he has been warming up to Jay, his friends find some relief.  Putting even more pressure on the Battle of the Hoes as Jay says he will go with Max and design their costumes.

Jay accidentally confesses his interest in Albert to Albert while they are selling homecoming tickets. But it leads Albert into asking Jay to hang out. Which, of course, Jay happily accepts.

Before Jay can have his first date, Max takes him out to experience his first taste of gay culture. Starting with a drag queen brunch. Where, since he is a drag virgin, Jay gets special attention from the queens themselves. That special attention leads Jay to meeting Tony and quickly realizing that he shouldn’t put all his eggs in one Albert – I mean basket. Tony and Jay exchange numbers and a potential opportunity at a frat party later.

Meeting Albert for what he thought was a date, turns out to be a group outing that included Reese, to play a mobile game akin to Pokemon Go – Digimole. Disappointment is quickly forgotten as Jay and Albert leave the group for a moment where flirting ends in a near kiss and an official date invitation from Albert. Another item crossed off his agenda.

Now Jay really wants to take Albert to homecoming and urgently needs to tell Lu that he won’t make it to the hoedown. He is on the verge of calling her when he runs across an article Lu, the budding journalist, wrote. The nail salon that her aunt works at is closing. And now Lu will be counting on the money from winning the costume contest with Jay even more. Getting ahold of Lu, she tells Jay that Chip broke up with her. Essentially because he couldn’t deal with dating someone as poor as she was. Jay still doesn’t tell her about homecoming, Albert, or not coming back for the hoedown.

In fashion design class, Max gets violently ill. So violently, I fell there should have been an emetophobic trigger warning! Damon and Jay run after him to check if he is alright. That is when Damon tells him that the traumatic event Max had recently experienced was a soul-crushing break-up with Reese.  Clearly Max wasn’t handling it all that well.  There was even a break-up gif. that had gone viral on twitter at Max’s expense.

Jay finds Max at home in his bedroom. Max finally spills all the details about his relationship with Reese. This tell-all spawns a new plan for homecoming and another list for Jay to write.

Again, in fashion class on another day, Jay receives an inadvertent ass slap that gives Jay a breakthrough that has Titanic-sized disaster written all over it. But that may only be seen by a reader that is not a teenager or has some life logic.

Max takes Jay to Tony’s fraternity (not frat) party where he gets to cross off another item off his agenda. Kissing Tony is everything he thought it would be. Even with a guy that Max had told him wanted nothing to do with relationships and wanted everything to do with safe and consensual slutery (totally a word – kinda).

Sharing his life-altering news with Lu via text is met with radio silence. But Jay couldn’t worry too much about it since the next night is his date with Albert.

A date that quickly highlights the difference between Albert and Tony. Tony is a good flesh puppet essentially. A guy to use to experience things in the bedroom. And Albert has future potential.

A date at Gameworks brings Jay his second kiss. Unlike Tony’s fevered make-out session, Albert’s affections reach Jay on a whole new level.

On his birthday, Jay’s parents give him a gift card for a plane ticket to visit Lu. Which should excite him but he still hasn’t heard from her for an entire week by this time. Max tries to cheer him up by pulling their focus toward homecoming. Only reminding Jay that if Lu ever contacts him again, he will have to tell her that he isn’t going back for the hoedown because he wants to go to homecoming with Albert, his boyfriend. Yeah, they’re not in a relationship. Jay just thinks that if he tells Lu that they are she’ll excuse him. Just  like she had expected Jay to do when she was dating Chip.

Lu does call him through the school’s main office claiming an emergency. Her cell phone was shut off and this was the first chance she had to get a hold of him. Jay tells her about Albert being his boyfriend. Resigned, Lu accepts it but now Jay feels horrible. At least until Albert sends a robot into Jay’s class with a new backpack for his birthday and an invitation to homecoming. Which sends the two of them into a pre-relationship honeymoon phase.

But not honeymoon-ish enough for Jay to cancel his date with Tony – on Max’s insistence. His time with Tony is immediately hormone driven. No soulful connection like with Albert. Tony takes him to a small theater so he can complete an extra credit assignment for school. He has to see the French movie, The Red Balloon. 

Red flags are being thrown in every direction, for those readers who dare to see it when it comes to Tony.  Still, Jay is happy to be there with the prospect of getting into Tony’s pants, or vice versa.

Sitting in the very back, the seats are too creaky for them to make out. As soon as they can, the two head back to Tony’s frat house, straight up to his bedroom. On the bedroom door is a tally – twelve. The number of ‘visitors’ he’s had.

As they start to get physical on Tony’s bed, Jay is clumsy but Tony understands knowing that it is his first time. Jay goes down on him before Tony takes his virginity becoming the college boy’s thirteenth visitor.

The following morning, he goes straight to Max to share the news. As Max starts to ask what it was like, Jay becomes suspicious. Yup, Max is a virgin. While they discuss the how’s and why’s, a commercial for Red Robin plays on the TV. A commercial starring Reese. Max freaks out taking it personally.

Jay finally gets Max to explain why Reese and he broke up. Max thinks that he was bringing Reese down and his new boyfriend is partly why he is now so successful.  Winning the homecoming contest is even more important to Reese now. The best revenge is a life well lived, after all. They decide on their homecoming costume;  ‘behind sight’, each dressing as one check of a butt wearing glasses.

Tony sent Jay a dick pic letting him know he’s ready for another round.

Albert takes Jay on another date further highlighting that Tony is nothing more than a good time and Albert is a future and much more conservative. But he accepts the differences between him and Jay and appreciates them. Admitting to Jay that he wasn’t a virgin but wanted to work toward getting to a place where they could have sex. The circumstances in which Albert lost his virginity caused him a bit of low-level trauma (no, it wasn’t rape); he wants Jay to allow him the time to get there along with him. After an internal struggle, Jay tells Albert he is more than willing to wait for him. Not having the balls to tell Albert about Tony or that he would still be gaining experience with the horny college guy.

Lu calls during a butt-costume-making session with Max to tell him that her and her aunt have been evicted. While Jay’s life is finally coming together, hers is falling apart. Max lets it slip that Albert is not yet Jay’s boyfriend not knowing that he had told Lu that he was.  Jay confesses to all the lies he has told her and she is pissed. Enough to tell him to get out of her life.

Jay’s solution? Distraction by way of sex with Tony. Leaving Max’s completely distraught, he runs straight to Tony’s bedroom without any thought. Their bedroom session is interrupted by Dillon – Tony’s boyfriend. Rushing out of the frat house Jay runs into Reese and his new boyfriend who is thinking of rushing the fraternity. Dillon chases after Jay to warn him away from Tony. Tony chases after them both trying to make Jay the fall guy for all his infidelity. Letting it slip that Max told him about Jay’s Gay Agenda. And now Reese knows everything and is extremely upset about his behavior toward Albert who he now thinks is just a part of his agenda and nothing more.

While all this is blowing up, Jay forgets he had a date planned with Albert who had gone to his house only to find him gone. Now Jay can’t get ahold of Albert.

As anyone with any life experience could have predicted from the beginning, everything is falling apart for Jay and he has no one to turn to except maybe Max. But he is furious with Max for telling Tony about the agenda. Putting way too much rage and emotion into the blame he is placing on Max but has no other outlet.

Finally able to confront Albert at school, he’s obviously upset having heard about the agenda and how Jay wove lie upon lie to hide Tony from him. Reese is with Albert acting as a physical barrier between him and Jay.  But Jay can’t take anymore from Reese and blows up at him over how he feels about the way he treated Max. Reese breaks down, claiming everything went much deeper than Jay, and apparently even Max knew.

As high school goes, news about the agenda spread quickly.

Max explains why he told Tony about the agenda. It becomes clear that Max never really understood the purpose of the agenda. It is not simply a checklist done for the purpose of marking things off a list. It is about finding his way toward acceptance as a gay man in a community that is brand new to him. And do it with someone that the universe sent just for him. Talking to Max also gives him some perspective on how deeply he hurt Albert.

Lu blocked his number. The rest of the LGTBQ+ community in his school has pretty much ostracized him. It takes Damon talking to Jay for him to realize none of this was Max’s fault. Jay made the decision to act as he did, no one else. He even neglected spending time with his dad while his mom was away working.  He essentially neglected every person in his life.

Since his dad is as good a parent as they get, he understands and accepts his son’s apology. Thus, the apology agenda is born.

First step is to help Max and Damon patch things up with their little family.

Dressed as an ass (their costume for homecoming), Max and Jay confront Reese. They kiss and make up. Max and Reese, not Jay.

Recruiting Reese, the three of them make their way to Albert. Jay gives him a list he compiled of adjectives that describe Albert.  Tentatively, Albert forgives him right before Jay and Max get detention for class disruption. They kiss and make up.

Jay drives back to Riverton and straight to Lu wearing his butt cheek which looks more like a boob since it’s just half of the costume. They don’t kiss but,  make up and go to the hoedown together dressed as two halves of an apple. The dance takes place in an apple orchard.  They arrive just as they announce the winners of the costume contest – they arrived too late. Jay is devastated. But Lu is someone who clearly cannot be crushed by life no matter how many silver-linings tarnish. She won a contest with an article she wrote which is going to pay for her first year of in-state college. They spend the rest of the time filling each other in about the last few months of their lives.

Before he leaves, Jay gives Lu her birthday present – the airline gift card his parents gave him.

Jay realizes he didn’t need a gay agenda. Being gay is a part of him not who he is. It doesn’t define him or his every experience in life.

Albert is waiting for him when he gets home. And Jay gets his kiss and impromptu dance in the Seattle rain.