Cub

If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Right? Usually meant metaphorically, in the case of 17-year-old Theo, the adage is a bit more literal. When his friend Di enters him into a cooking competition through HEAT—the hip new restaurant in town run by superstar chef Kyle Carl Clark (aka Chef KCC)—Theo can’t turn down the opportunity. But as excited as he is, Theo is also not fully prepared for the personal insults from fellow contestants or the sexual tension with Chef KCC, especially when the celebrity chef offers him a guaranteed win in exchange for encounters of a more intimate nature. With the help of Mama Bear, the drag queen emcee of the competition, Theo eventually has to decide if the heat in the kitchen is still bearable or not.

Cub is a hi-lo novel with very high stakes, but one that manages to balance solid character development as well. Coccia also uses the cooking competition as an opportunity to critique image-obsessed, mainstream gay culture, especially around weight and muscles (see the excerpt above.) In addition, the novel looks at ways that young men are preyed upon in the workforce, something that can be forgotten about within larger discussions of #MeToo and female oppression in a patriarchal workforce. Chef KCC and his husband use their positions of power to prey upon Theo’s innocence and naiveté.

While hi-lo novels do not often allow for greater character development because of the focus on plot, Cub allows Theo to fully develop as a young gay man surrounded by people who are obsessed with looking a very specific way, namely thin and muscular. While KCC preys on Theo’s insecurities, Mama Bear—a somewhat cliché, benevolent drag queen—works to build Theo up in ways that can remind readers of their own power to empower those around them. An encouraging and necessary story, Cub is a book that will start important conversations among younger readers, librarians, and educators.