IMMORTAL

A gay teen aspires to Olympian celebrity in Karl’s YA novel.

Jason Masters, a 16-year-old junior at Niagara County High School in upstate New York, is struggling with the fact that he’s gay. When he’s spotted waiting tables at his mother’s diner by billionaire Zeus Vasiliadis, the tycoon decides that the preternaturally handsome Jason should be the face of his new men’s cosmetics line, “IMMORTAL by The House of Ganymede.” (The brand is named after the Greek god Zeus’ beautiful cupbearer on Mount Olympus.) The prospect of being a millionaire supermodel appeals to Jason, as does teenage Youngsoo Kwon, the attractive Korean expatriate son of one of Zeus’s executives. The besotted Youngsoo woos Jason with cashmere sweaters and spa treatments while venting his mad egotism: “I will crush my enemies to death, no matter who tries to stop me!” he blusters before hatching a plan to take over Zeus’ company and become the emperor of South Korea. Youngsoo’s megalomania rubs off on Jason, who asks “Are you ready to kneel before your god and worship me?” while the two are skinny-dipping. Jason’s modeling—which includes illegal nude photo shoots—rockets him to social media fame and riches, and he plans to consummate the bliss by having sex, for the first time, with Youngsoo after the prom—if they survive an attack by a school shooter. Karl’s yarn gives a glitzy, modern gloss to Greek mythology. It’s replete with Homeric circling eagles—sometimes symbolizing the bird of prey that is heteronormativity, and other times the main character spreading his wings. Karl’s characters tend toward lively, bombastic narcissism, and the prose has a salacious tone that can be inappropriate and problematic, as when the underage Jason flashes Zeus and his adult executives at the diner: “‘Now that’s what I call a true dessert!’ someone said, practically salivating at the sight of the fully-packed pouch of Jason’s tight white briefs.” At its best, though, Karl’s writing has an ardent lyricism—“Twisting, turning, struggling, their dance became a Daredevil Cartwheel, with one male eagle exerting dominance over another”—that aptly conveys the characters’ intensity.

An often entertaining, if sometimes-lurid, tale of young love and vanity.