Opening Lines
The opening paragraph of the first chapter is the flexing of comic irony. It drips with the sarcasm that can only come with having spent a long time in small-town America:
“I’m not sure what I loved most about being on the track team. Maybe it was the crippling shin splints. Or constantly feeling like I’d just smoked three packs of cigarettes. Maybe it was the empty stands at every meet, or the way the results got buried in the local sports section.”
Battle of the Sexes
The narrator is far from the most empathetic character of all time. He is really pretty much just an ordinary portrait of a teenage boy. Or, for that matter, a middle-aged man. The sarcasm still drips relentlessly:
“I just wasn’t used to hearing about people’s problems. Mom was a martyr; no matter how hard her life was, she never complained. Tim and Jack were guys, and therefore showed no feelings.”
Story Versus Marketing
The story is written so that the revelation that Sage is transgender comes as a shock to the narrator. And that revelation does not take place until fairly deep into the book. It is clear that the author intended this to come as a surprise to the reader, though perhaps not quite as shocking. Instead, the marketing is driven by the trans element. This decision alters the entire tone of the first section of the story, creating the type of irony in which the reader knows more than the narrator which serves to refashion the reader response to him.
When Irony Is Twice as Nice
Brenda is the narrator’s girlfriend who has kept putting off going all the way. The night of the homecoming dance she is dressed to nines and looking better than ever and he’s sure this is going to be the night. But, once again, he is disappointed. The narration takes the form of a recollection from a future point in time, so the narrator already knows something as he recalls the night something that he didn’t know at the time. So here is a case in which the irony works on two different levels:
“Logan, I’m just not ready for that. Could we wait a little longer? Please? Think about how special it will be.
As I turned off the shower and wrapped a towel tightly around my waist, I wondered how special it had been for Brenda. I just wished I could have been there.”
Clueless
Some of the irony comes at the expense of the narrator himself. Usually, this also a double helping because the narrator truly doesn’t understand he is coming off as ironic, but for the reader it is quite clear. As in this case, in which the reader already can figure out the narrator is not exactly a prize:
“I’d smiled inside, thinking that Brenda had teared up because she was just so overjoyed to have a boyfriend like me.”
