Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
A Novel
Picador · Print & ebook · April 28, 2009
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- Who it’s for
- A sharp, tender portrait of a young man questioning the assumptions adults take for granted.
- Themes
- Coming of age, Family relationships, Self-discovery
- Genres
- YA LGBTQ+, Dating & Sex for Teens, YA Stories About Boys & Men
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the story of James Sveck, a sophisticated, vulnerable young man with a deep appreciation for the world and no idea how to live in it. James is eighteen, the child of divorced parents living in Manhattan. Articulate, sensitive, and cynical, he rejects all of the assumptions that govern the adult world around him–including the expectation that he will go to college in the fall.
Continue reading
He would prefer to move to an old house in a small town somewhere in the Midwest. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You takes place over a few broiling days in the summer of 2003 as James confides in his sympathetic grandmother, stymies his canny therapist, deplores his pretentious sister, and devises a fake online identity in order to pursue his crush on a much older coworker. Nothing turns out how he'd expected. "Possibly one of the all-time great New York books, not to mention an archly comic gem" (Peter Gadol, LA Weekly), Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is the insightful, powerfully moving story of a young man questioning his times, his family, his world, and himself.
Wry Growing Pains
A sharp, tender portrait of a young man questioning the assumptions adults take for granted.
Come here for
- An articulate, skeptical voice with an eye for adult absurdities
- Family friction and self-questioning, treated with wit and feeling
Expect
- A few summer days shaped by uncertainty and unlikely confidences
- An insightful, moving story with an archly comic edge
Where it sits
| YA LGBTQ+ | 92% |
|---|---|
| Dating & Sex for Teens | 21% |
| YA Stories About Boys & Men | 21% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- YA LGBTQ+
- Finding Your Footing
- Authors
- Peter Cameron
- Publisher
- Picador
- Published
- April 28, 2009
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Coming of age · Family relationships · Self-discovery
- Reading lane
- YA LGBTQ+