SERIES BLURB
The books in the Pizza Chronicles series follow the main character, RV, through his high school years, as he tries to answer his many questions about life, God, prayer, sexuality, being the son of immigrants, and staying loyal to his heritage while carving out his own life and relationships.
The stories should be read in order.
Book #1: Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza?
Book #2: Why Can’t Freshman Summer Be Like Pizza?
Book #3: Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza?
Book #4: Why Can’t Sophomore Summer Be Like Pizza?
Book #5: Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza?
Overall Heat Rating for the series: 1 flame
Cat's Reviews for all 5 books to follow the synopsis' and buy links...
BOOK 5 - NEW RELEASE
Book Title: Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza?
Themes: Dating, films, art, bullying, gay suicide, finding one’s passion, surviving break-ups
This story is a continuation of Book #1-4 with the same characters and does not end on a cliffhanger. It is best to read the books in order.
Series Buy Links
NineStar Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Sixteen year-old RV negotiates the ups and down of junior year of high school, filled with pressure, new romance, and unexpected discoveries.
RV is now a junior in Book #5, Why Can’t Dating Be Like Pizza?. It’s the most important year of high school, as his guidance counselor makes clear. He pushes RV to improve his grades, get more active socially, and show colleges why they should accept him over other candidates. But RV has other things on his mind. He has met Luke, freshly arrived in Boston from Los Angeles. Luke shows him a whole new world of romance, movie making, and fun. RV’s friends and family pull him in other directions though. There’s the responsibility of earning money. His longtime friend Carole pulls him into politics, asking him to direct her campaign running for the student council. His old crush Bobby isn’t around much, and RV has to accept that he and Bobby are no longer an item, though he still has some feelings for him. But when Luke makes an unexpected announcement, RV really has to accept that dating has painful downs as well as joyful ups.
CHECK OUT THE FIRST FOUR BOOKS IN
THE PIZZA CHRONICLES SERIES
BOOK 1
Book Title: Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza?
Buy Links
NineStar Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
In Why Can’t Life Be Like Pizza? RV begins freshman year at demanding Boston Latin School, doing his best to keep up and fit in while wrestling with his immigrant heritage and his sexuality.
Wrestling with his sexuality, along with a lot of other things, RV thinks all is okay when he starts going out with Carole. But things get more complicated when RV develops a crush on Bobby, a football player in his class, who admits he may have gay feelings, too. Bobby is African American and facing his own pressures. Luckily, RV develops a friendship with Mr. Aniso, his Latin teacher, who is gay and always there to talk to when the pressure becomes overwhelming.
BOOK 2
Book Title: Why Can’t Freshman Summer Be Like Pizza?
Themes: Obstacles to exploring sexuality and enjoying summer
This story is a continuation of Book #1 with the same characters
Buy Links
Nine Star Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
In Why Can’t Freshman Summer Be Like Pizza? RV and Bobby have survived freshman year and are looking forward to spending a wonderful summer together. But life has other plans.
RV and Bobby’s summer is not what they wish for. They hardly have time to spend with each other. Bobby is busy at football camp and working at a job his father has pressured him into taking. RV is busy with a summer job, too, and also has to help his parents pass their U.S. citizenship test. His friend Carole jumps at the chance to spend her summer in Paris. As always, Mr. Aniso, RV’s Latin teacher is there to talk to when RV gets too lonely. He’s also there when RV inadvertently spills one of Bobby’s secrets, and Bobby is so angry at him RV is afraid he’s ready to cut off the friendship.
BOOK 3
Book Title: Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza?
Themes: Maintaining relationships through difficulties/helping friend through tragedy
This is a continuation of Book #2 of The Pizza Chronicles
Buy Links
Nine Star Press | Amazon US | Amazon UK
In Why Can’t Relationships Be Like Pizza?, Book #3, RV begins sophomore year in high school, though his relationships create more questions than answers.
RV is trying to maintain his newfound friendship with Bobby, but it’s becoming harder and harder. Bobby seems a different, more distant, person. RV’s friend Carole is distracted with the ups and downs in her relationships with the French boyfriends she met during her summer in Paris. RV’s new friend Mark is focused on his family’s troubles. School is a mixed bag. But Mr. Aniso, RV’s former teacher and mentor, is there to lean on, especially when near tragedy strikes and RV needs Mr. Aniso’s counsel to stay strong and provide help where it’s needed most.
BOOK 4
Book Title: Why Can’t Sophomore Summer Be Like Pizza?
Tropes: Summer vacation between freshman & sophomore years of high school
Themes: Teenage steps toward maturity: ups & downs of romance, driving lessons, coming out to family
It is a standalone story, with the same characters from books 1-3.
The books have frequent references to previous titles in the series, so better if they are read in order.
Buy Links
RV’s summer after sophomore year of high school isn’t all fun and games as he navigates a budding new relationship, struggles with driving lessons, copes with the ups and downs of his summer job in a movie theatre, and tries to be patient with his traditional family that doesn’t want to deal with his sexuality.
It’s the summer after sophomore year and RV enjoys new adventures and faces new challenges having finished two years of high school. Since he loves movies, he’s happy to get a job as an usher at a movie multiplex, but learns the realities of dealing with job stresses and unruly customers. It’s time for him to start learning how to drive, and his father is eager to give him lessons. But he’s not the most patient of teachers and RV is not the most capable of drivers. Bobby is still around, but he’s doing the hard job of recovering from his injury so doesn’t have time for much else. RV tries to open himself up to a new relationship and is happy when he meets Matteo, who works at the multiplex also. It looks like the start of a budding romance – until it isn’t. And then there is RV’s family, loving but traditional, not ready or willing to discuss issues of sexuality. Luckily, as always, there is Mr. Aniso, RV’s freshmen-year teacher, who has become a friend and is always there to talk over anything that might be bothering RV. But he’s away for the summer, helping his partner’s family, so there’s only so much time and attention he can give RV.
Guest Post – Andy V. Roamer, author of The Pizza Chronicles
My favorite Characters in The Pizza Chronicles series – And Why They Matter
As the fifth book in The Pizza Chronicles series is being published this month, I’ve been thinking about the different characters I’ve written about. Why they appear in the books in the first place? What I like about them? What it is I’m trying to say by including them? Do I want them to return in the future?
RV. RV is the main character. Every book is told from his perspective, as he’s writing on his used computer that his parents have given him. He’s fourteen years old and just starting high school at the demanding Boston Latin School in Boston. RV is short for Arvydas (Are-vee-duhs, as he pronounces it). It’s a common Lithuanian name. RV’s parents are immigrants from Lithuania. Much of the plot has to do with RV wrestling with the rules and traditions of his parents (ie., those of the “old country”) vs. what RV finds happening in his own life. Sometimes the rules are in conflict, especially when it comes to sexuality. At the start of series, RV struggles to come to terms with being gay, something that does not fit easily with the more traditional, conservative rules of his parents. It’s a conflict many gay teens face. The immigrant angle adds another more complex layer to the issues a gay teen has to deal with. As with much fiction, some of it is directly based on my own experiences and some is from the experiences I’ve heard from others or read about.
Mr. Aniso. Apart from RV, Mr. Aniso is perhaps my favorite character in the book. He’s RV’s Latin teacher freshman year. He’s openly gay and at one point is the victim of anti-gay violence. As he lies in the hospital, RV screws up his courage to visit him. As they sit there talking, much of RVs fears, hopes, and frustrations come tumbling out, and in a flood of tears he is able to admit for the first time some of the feelings that are roiling inside him. Being able to be so open is a huge relief for RV. HIs relationship with Mr. Aniso grows throughout the series and Mr. Aniso becomes not only a mentor, but a friend. The character is partly based on one of my teachers in high school, but not someone I got to know. So he’s essentially a fantasy. Someone I wish I had known in high school. To me it shows the importance of having someone to talk to and confide in, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality.
Bobby. Bobby is another character partly based on someone I knew in high school but didn’t get to know very closely. Bobby is an athlete, a good student, and a nice guy, almost too good to be true. I did know someone like that in high school. He was my biology partner freshman year. And I did fantasize about him (who wouldn’t!). But that’s where it stopped. In The Pizza Chronicles, Bobby and RV become friends. It turns out Bobby is also wrestling with feelings of being gay. But being black, he feels additional pressures and the need to prove himself not just as a “jock.” And there’s his demanding, accomplished father, who wants him to follow in his professional footsteps. These issues cause difficulties between Bobby and RV and test the bonds of their friendship.
Carole. RV meets Carole freshman year. She is another lonely person, craving friendship and acceptance. She feels a little awkward and copes with the separation of her parents and what she feels is her father’s absence from her life. At the same time she’s fun and not as shy as RV is. So they hit it off. She leads RV into all sorts of little adventures, including romantic ones, that RV is very eager to follow as he’s trying to sort out all his confusing feelings.
I hope my readers get to know and love these characters they way I do. Over the course of the series, they’ve grown and changed and suffered setbacks as well as triumphs. They’ve become almost real to me. I want to give them a big hug, tell them I’ve enjoyed their company, and assure them a wonderful future awaits them.
Andy V. Roamer grew up in the Boston area and moved to New York City after college. He worked in book publishing for many years, starting out in the children’s and YA books division and then wearing many other hats. This is his first novel about RV, the teenage son of immigrants from Lithuania in Eastern Europe, as RV tries to negotiate his demanding high school, his budding sexuality, and new relationships. He has written an adult novel, Confessions of a Gay Curmudgeon, under the pen name Andy V. Ambrose. To relax, Andy loves to ride his bike, read, watch foreign and independent movies, and travel.
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