Date Me, Bryson Keller: TikTok made me buy it!

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I hope the writer works on his craft and learns to develop a more intense storyline, because he’s got the chops to go far. But he definitely needs to learn to develop a full story. MC: ...You hinted that Kai was a lot of your personal experiences wrapped up into this character. So I totally understand why he would be your favorite and really resonated with you. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? The reader] says he actually teared up because it reminded him so much of his own experience. I think that's the amazing thing of having the story out there, having readers tell me that what I've written resonates with them. And having the story described as wish fulfillment, because for so many queer teens, this probably will never happen. Having this chance to escape into a world where anything is possible, it's exciting to hear that I gave them that, because Bryson Keller is wish fulfillment, escape, and where everyone gets to date the dream guy in high school.

Closet Key: Kai becomes one for Bryson although it's ambiguous whether he's gay, bi or demisexual since he didn't seriously date or felt romantic attraction until him but had only dated girls at that point. KVW: Thank you. It's been a weird experience. Writing is just you and your computer, you're isolated, and having the book out and having readers actually read what you've written is such a… I don't actually know how to describe that experience. It's taking some time to get used to, but it's exciting… Actually, I today woke up to a message from a reader who said… there's one scene in the book where Kai's mother finds the strip of photos with him and Bryson, and that leads to that big confrontation. This isn't because of the similarities between Date Me, Bryson Keller, and Seven Days -a manga I read before reading this. I think what the author said was true: he took the idea of "dating for a week" thing, everything else is quite different. Still, it doesn't sit well with me that the author took this idea completely and the authors of Seven Days barely got a mention in his book. Like sure, the execution was different, but just how literally can you take an idea? Because it's different to say "fake-dating" and "we are fake-dating for a week exactly and the entire school knows about this dare". So. Yeah-uhm. Not a fan. Kai, the mc, is a closeted gay high school senior. So far so good. He’s terrified of coming out to his parents, mostly because his mom is Catholic and very religious. Still fine. He never came out to his two best friends he met at the beginning of high school, because when he was thirteen he came out to his best friend at the time and was ghosted. Kind of a lot for a kid not to have a single person he’s comfortable with, but that is sometimes our reality.

Date Me, Bryson Keller is a love letter to the 90’s/early 2000 Rom-Coms that I grew up on. It’s the story of seventeen-year-old, gay-but-not-out Kai Sheridan, who asks popular Bryson Keller out on a date as part of a dare, which changes both their lives forever. The book is best described as a coming out story but with a rom-com sensibility. Readers can expect a tale of first love. There will be trials and tribulations, you may cry but you will also laugh, and I promise that this gay love story has a happy ending. Date Me, Bryson Keller feels nostalgic for the 80s/90s romantic comedies but with a very needed queer twist. I couldn’t put it down! What inspired this fun story? And do you have a favorite romcom? Forced Out of the Closet: Kai never had the chance to come out to either his family or the general public on his own terms since his mother found the photo strip of him and Bryson followed up by Shannon posting an article of his homosexuality to the entire school. Date Me, Bryson Keller is a 2020 LGBT young adult novel written by Kevin Van Whye about the budding relationship of two male high schoolers and the obstacles they have to overcome. Despite, for the most part, being a fun and romantic story, it also managed to pull at my emotional heartstrings. It had me smiling and swooning one minute, and raging and rallying the next. Although I referred to this as Kai’s coming-out journey, disgracefully, for those responsible, many of his significant coming-out moments were stolen/forced on him by other people, and for that I became a total rage-monster of indignation and disgust on Kai’s behalf. No one should ever have such a personal and meaningful experience taken away from them, but poor Kai did so on more than one occasion. To this, all I can say is that, however frustrated and heartbroken I was on Kai’s behalf, I was also proud of the way he handled himself and I was thankful there were enough supportive people in his life to rally around him.

KVW: Yeah, he came to life. It was such a weird experience the first time I heard it, because it was all on my screen, all in my head, and then all of a sudden it was real. Having a personality is actually another problem in this book. No one really feels… like they do… It’s more like a few traits slapped together to make a shape of person. A quirk here or there, because those are supposed to make characters more believable. And that’s the best case scenario. The worst? Making a character a racist, homophobic caricature because the author needs them to do something shitty to move the plot forward. Meet Shannon. Meet Dustin. MC: I love the tropes. They, like we were saying, make the story just feel that much more rich, more relatable, and they add that extra layer. There's so much you can do with tropes and they’re so much fun.Thank you for saying that. Being an ex-film student that makes me happy! I don’t exactly have a dream cast but I did use certain actors for visual reference. When I was drafting the late Cameron Boyce was my Kai and for Bryson it was a French model/actor Maxence Danet-Fauvel. I also think actor Brandon Flynn gives off some Bryson Keller vibes. With Date Me, Bryson Keller releasing in May, what’s next for you? Are you working on another project already? If so, can you spare a few tidbits with us? Cool Teacher: Miss Henning whose literature lectures are never a dull day when she teaches, wearing snazzy Shakespearian costumes and doing plays instead of textbooks, and defends Kai against Issac's harassment of the former should be playing Juliet by pointing out it's historically proven men played both genders in theatre. MC: Exactly. It's escapism at its finest. And this is an own-voices story. You add that extra element. It's an LGBTQIA+ story, which is something that those '90s rom-coms didn't have, so it's taking that medium and that mode of storytelling and reinventing it. Ironic since this story bursting at the seams with social justice issues one of which being how queer kids never get the romcoms, HEAs and the like, instead being relegated to the funny friend or killed off. So I was surprised that not only was Date Me, Bryson Keller not funny but Kai, our protagonist, was put through the gauntlet. Extremely Short Timespan: Other than the prologue which happened two months before, the entirety of Kai and Bryson's relationship, and the drama that comes with it, takes place over the course of about two weeks.

After all, their "relationship" only lasts five days and the popular, good-looking Bryson Keller is straight... right?! MC: I love it. Date Me, Bryson Keller is such a feel-good escapist piece of fiction, but like we're talking about right now, it doesn't shy away from the real issues of coming out and facing the world as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. So while there's so much fun and sweetness throughout, there's also a lot of real-talk moments that really resonated with me and I'm sure, and hopeful, will resonate with a lot of queer teens. So if there's one thing that you would want a young queer person listening to the story to take away, what do you think it would be? KVW: With Bryson Keller, it was first love, whereas with this one, the main character has already been in a relationship, so he's moved on. So it's like, though it's not the big wow of first love, it's another aspect of it. So that's been a fun relationship to explore. And I'm also a fan of friends to lovers, so yay tropes. Official Couple: By Friday night of the first week, Bryson and Kai cemented themselves as boyfriends, sealing it with a tender yet passionate kiss.I'm completely baffled. The writer of this book stole another author of colour (Tachibana Venio)'s unique prose from a manga called Seven Days and claimed it as his own without giving credit until he was called out for plagiarizing. He claimed this novel is "born from [his] own critique of the work," ??? If your intent was to critique an original, published, well loved story using it's exact creative concept, fan fiction is the route to go. I can't believe this book was published as an original work when the synopsis' are identical, and no written credit to Seven Days was included in the book. Trial-Period Dating: Bryson is dared to go out with someone new each week, namely the first person who asked him out on Monday morning and continue to do so until Friday afternoon. Since he never specified the suitor's gender, fellow male student Kai asks him out. After their Big Damn Kiss on Friday, Bryson calls off The Bet and they start going out for real. The Bryson that appears in the finished draft is vastly different from the one who first showed up in my earlier drafts. I really have my editor to thank for that. She pushed me to make him as developed as Kai.