A lot to like here, but...

The format of the story, ie: letters, really dilutes the story overall. Every letter, or most, becomes more about moving the plot forward than being a genuine heart-felt moment of revelation or discovery.

The writing is at times very beautiful, and the characters are wonderfully fleshed out (thanks to excellent narrators), but they never really jumped off the page for me and I think that is because of the way Henstra chose to tell this particular story. There have been a great many letters saved from history between lovers that tell interesting stories. I suspect those letters fascinate us not because their writers told us the plot, but showed us something about humanity, emotions like love and desire. Even for a YA title, the letters never get above luke-warm.

There is something that works here, particularly Kurl's journey of discovery, but there's also a lot missing here.

And, one of my biggest complaints in general about titles like this is wondering why women(and straight men) are telling the stories of gay men and boys. Perhaps that is the ingredient missing. I'm not sure. Nothing against Sarah Henstra, but I wish more gay writers would tell their stories. Authenticity matters. So does representation.

Still, overall, WCM has it's moments even if those moments never really shine as bright or reach their full potential due to the constraints of the format.

15 people found this helpful

Just don't read this

The age gap between the protaginists is beyond uncomfortable considering that one of them is a freshman and the other is a senior who was held back. That means that one I can assume to be 14 or 15 and the other could be 18 or 19. There is also a scene in the book in which the freshman's sister has sex with the senior. The senior was under the influence of alcohol and is described as barely conscious. The freshman forgives his sister immediately for essentially assaulting his boyfriend, but he can't seem to forgive his senior boyfriend who, I will repeat, was drunk. This book just made me extremely uncomfortable in every way possible. Please for the love of everything, do not listen to this audio book.

10 people found this helpful

Lovely, passionate epistolary novel...but

I'm a sucker for happy stories. I'm a sucker for weird gay kids because I was one.
This story can be compared to Call Me By Your Name in the emotional heat that it produces. The pivoting on Walt Whitman renewed my interest in the poet.

Here's the "but"
The quiet angry abused older writer (Curly?) metamorphised too rapidly, too completely, too transformatively (if that's not redundant). While still be regularly abused he took on superhero status. And what person writes a letter to the person they had sex with describing (blow by blow, figuratively speaking only) what happened. It's a contorted use of the epistolary style to provide narrative. And what teacher gives this kind of assignment that has no adult review to help facilitate growth? And what assertive, openly gay, intelligent, precociously insightful 10th grader allows himself to be mercilessly bullied without getting the support of his supportive dad, his teachers and other adults in the environment? This takes place in 2016. I was a teacher in high school in Florida prior to this time (I've since retired). This would not have gone unnoticed by the professional staff in Florida, let alone urban Minneapolis.

Yes, I did suspend belief. Yes, I would read other books she wrote.

To the person who wrote that he can't understand women and straight men writing gay literature, I've asked myself the same question so I thought about it. I'm not sure that's not a form of homophobia, For example Yaoi is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. Writers aren't always writing novels that are cloaked autobiographies or we'd have few horror or mass murder novels.

This book was a journey or two journeys for two complex, loner youths. I cried and I was in the characters' corners cheering them on. OK, I just changed my score on the story from 3 to 4.

9 people found this helpful

Gorgeous story!!!

I loved it! And I'm not usually into the whole YA romance theme. Gorgeous storytelling.

3 people found this helpful

It Gets... Worse

The beginning of this book was beyond wonderful. I wanted to give it fifteen stars... out of five. I was ready to weep for joy at the beauty I was reading and the unique method of storytelling employed by the author. While I continued to enjoy the book, the first hint that things weren't perfect came when I realized that she was moving the plot along quite unnaturally by having the main characters tell each other in letters what they'd just finished saying to each other, and what they'd just finished doing together. A bit of that might have worked. But this went on for hours. Though the way she advanced the story was a bit tedious in and of itself, the story was still worth listening to.

But about halfway through the book, any darkness that was hinted at began to take center stage. A good gay-themed book tells the reader (and in this case, the reader might well be a teen) that it gets better. But the only message I as an adult was receiving was that it gets worse... much worse. Abuse, bullying, betrayal, abandonment—it was all there in spades. The hopelessness I felt until the final chapter was haunting.

I am sure that Ms Henstra sees herself as some kind of ally. She probably thinks she was doing the gay community a favor by writing this novel. The fact that she inserted half-assed redemption in the end probably made it all okay, she was probably thinking. If so, she was dead wrong. If, in order to get to the good stuff at the end, an adolescent has to go through this kind of torture and pain, then there are probably many who might listen to this book and decide it's simply not worth it. I cannot recommend this book at all. It's simply painful.

2 people found this helpful

Great voice acting

Cannot commend the voice actors enough. The story was heart wrenching and beautiful at the same time. My only complaint is that the letter format the story is based on feels out of place in certain places. Overlooking that it is perfect

2 people found this helpful

A Wonderful Concept; Not the Best Execution

Henstra's 'We Contain Multitudes' composes a very intriguing and interesting concept: two boys meet over the course of a penpal assignment in English class, ultimately help one another through various difficulties, fall in love... the story is an enjoyable and heartfelt one, albeit riddled with some tired high-school cliches. The novel's epistolary (letter-writing) format, however, just didn't work for me. The letters were far too detailed and expository to be realistic and, in many ways, felt like they only existed to forward the narrative. I do want to praise the audiobook's performances; both narrators did an excellent job of portraying Little Jo and Kurl. Though I wasn't the biggest fan of HOW the novel was told, I can say that I ultimately still enjoyed it for what it offered. If you're on the fence, and you're a fan of the epistolary format, this novel may be for you.

2 people found this helpful

this was a very extraordinary book beautifully wri

I love this book doing a beautiful love story that heard nearly enough those two boys are so beautiful I will miss them thank you for this

1 person found this helpful

Soooo good

This book is just amazing. The plot and characters are so intriguing and I could not put the book down.

1 person found this helpful

Ugh - the good and the bad of it

I like the letter concept. I've seen it done well and I've seen it done horribly, We Contain Multitudes sits somewhere in the middle. The author should have found another way around the scenes where they wanted to share an ENTIRE scene between the two characters, because it just didn't come across well in letter form and ripped me from the storyline.

That said, the book did an excellent job in showing a relationship from the beginning, to am actual relationship, to where everything from their relationship & every relationship they had went in the dumps. I mean seriously. At first I wondered if there was anyone truly redeeming in the book due to the extreme amount of angst. Then I realized that yes, there were redeeming characters, but that they all did such horrible things it was difficult to like any of them.

And quite honestly, this felt more like a love letter from the author to Walt Whitman and Prince than an actual story at times.

So not a winner, but not necessarily a loser either as a book. I won't be looking for anything else from this author, though the narrators I will be looking for. Both narrators did an excellent job.

I just don't get it - so many LGBT novels that pop out from major publishers suck. There are extremely talented authors, indie authors, who don't seem to get noticed, and authors who are meh, who do. I'm getting tired of it.