Marsha's Reviews > Disarmed

The Kings Row lads head to France. Frankly, you don’t know whom to feel sorrier for, the Americans or the French. The Camp Menton boys and girls show the typical French disdain for the Americans, hidden under polite banter, comparisons of Old World fencing compared to the relatively new and therefore lackluster New World schools. And there are challenges to fencing, with certain scholarship boys getting their butts handed to them.

Seiji Katayama, Nicholas Cox, Aiden Kane and Harvard Lee are the primary players in this boy’s love drama. But others are starting fledgling romances as well. The main romantic tension comes from Harvard’s processing of his feelings for Aiden while Aiden continues on his relentless quest to bed every boy that crosses his path. (Frankly, I don’t find mean boys to be any more attractive than mean girls and I’d like just one person to turn up his nose at Aiden and declare they’ve got better things to do with their time.)

Nicholas wins points for this. Of most of the boys around, he just doesn’t get what the big deal about Aiden is. Aiden has a certain blondness and louche charm. But Nicholas is more focused on fencing and dealing with Seiji’s struggles to fit in and bond with other people.

However, in France, we see that Seiji is in his element. Totally dedicated to fencing (and with the laser focus you get from people with Asperger’s), he meets up with French students who are just as dedicated to the artform, if not more so. He has no trouble talking to them, mingling with them and socializing, much to Nicholas’s dismay. If Seiji can’t understand why he’s so concerned with Nicholas’s welfare, Nicholas is equally slow at parsing out his own feelings.

This novel brims with emotional tension, simmering resentments, international rivalry and burgeoning romance. On or off the piste, the boys have their work cut out for them.