Review: Riley Weaver Needs a Date to the Gaybutante Ball

 

Sometimes the queer community gets far too wrapped up in its own discourse and drama, fixating on respectability and optics over the fundamental meaning of queerness or, you know, being a kind person – and that’s what this book is all about. The titular Riley Weaver decides to start a podcast chronicling his dating adventures after being told by a classmate that gay guys aren’t interested in dating someone as femme as Riley. The catch: Riley has to find a masc date in time for the Gaybutante Ball, or he’ll lose his bet and be forced to drop out of his effort to join the Gaybutante Society, his yearslong dream. Throughout the book we see Riley’s experience trying to find someone to date, but also navigating his relationships with his queer friends and what it means to be a little bit famous. Now, there’s a pretty clear flaw in Riley’s logic here: what does it actually mean for a guy to be masc? When gender roles are so fluid and arbitrarily assigned, how can there ever be an objective designation of masc or femme, beyond what a person identifies as? I was worried about this throughout the book, but without spoiling anything, let me alleviate that concern for any potential readers: it takes a while for that issue to get addressed, but I promise it does happen in a meaningful way.

A couple of other elements in the book, on the other hand, didn’t get quite fleshed out in the way one might hope. First: as someone who actually is a podcaster, from my perspective it didn’t necessarily seem like the author really understood what making a podcast entails. It was there in the background of the book but was never really brought up – the technology struggles, the hours spent editing, and the planning that goes into each episode. Is this a huge problem? No. Let’s be real – the podcast element is really just set dressing for the story the author really wants to tell. But given that Riley’s whole dream is to become a podcaster, it seems like these elements should have been taking up more space in his mind.

Second, the Gaybutante Society really confused me. It’s supposed to be this huge national organization that has so much influence that it can basically make someone internet famous with a single share, and its members go on to become famous artists, politicians, and actors. But it draws its membership from the high schoolers of only four cities, one of which is the tiny town Riley lives in? And somehow there are enough queer people who a) are interested in joining this organization and b) have some kind of phenomenal talent to fill up the organization? I swear there were more queer people in this tiny town’s high school who wanted to join and had an incredible talent than my decent-sized high school had total. It just didn’t totally track. Also the organization seemed very concerned with keeping a respectable image towards the public – and yet all the parties were filled with underage drinking? That bit made absolutely no sense to me. There’s no way you keep that many giant, over-the-top parties that are getting posted to everyone’s social media quiet, especially when everyone’s getting drunk. So, whatever. Again, not something that ruins the book; it just means it sort of falls apart if you think about it too hard. But it was a genuinely entertaining read, and it takes on a lot of the politicking in the queer community in a really meaningful, important way.