'Invisible Boys' by Holden Sheppard
- Reed
- Aug 6
- 3 min read
Author: Holden Sheppard
Rating: A
Vibe: Small-town Australia with suicide notes, religious shame, and desperate secrets
Quick Take: Brutal, beautiful, and unflinchingly real—this book gutted me in the best possible way.
Invisible Boys hit me like a truck. Holden Sheppard has written something that doesn't just tell you about being young and gay in a hostile place—it makes you feel every bit of the shame, rage, and desperate hope that comes with it. This book is fierce, uncompromising, and I'm still thinking about it weeks later.
The story follows three teenage boys navigating sexuality and identity in a tiny Australian town: Charlie, the defiant rocker who gets outed on Facebook; Zeke, the Catholic school nerd caught between faith and desire; and Hammer, the footy (Australian rules football) star convinced his attraction to men is just a phase he can will away. What makes the story particularly gripping is how Sheppard structures it around anonymous suicide letters woven throughout—we know one of these boys is planning to end his life, but we don't know who until the final pages. That uncertainty propels every scene forward with this underlying dread that kept me turning pages even when my heart was breaking.
The religious elements hit me hard. I grew up Mormon, and Sheppard captures something so authentic about how families handle the "problem" of a gay kid—that desperate hope that if you just don't talk about it, maybe it'll go away. But of course it doesn't go away, it just changes how everyone interacts, like the way Zeke's dad starts treating him differently after finding his internet history. That shift in family dynamics, that sudden distance where there used to be warmth—Sheppard gets it exactly right.
Reading this, I kept thinking about how I always wanted to be a Charlie—the punk rocker, defiant and unapologetic. But honestly? I was totally Zeke. The nerd, the people-pleaser, the one trying so hard to reconcile faith with desire that you tie yourself in knots.
One scene that absolutely destroyed me in the best way: the boys end up on a rooftop sharing bourbon and talking about first crushes. It's tender and real and exactly the kind of formative experience that straight kids take for granted but that we often miss out on entirely. As gay people—at least in my generation—we got screwed out of a lot of those high school moments, and watching these characters create their own felt like witnessing something sacred. Even if the details get fuzzy over time, you know they'll remember how that night made them feel for the rest of their lives.
Sheppard doesn't pull any punches with the homophobia these boys face, but he also doesn't make it cartoonish or one-dimensional. The bullying feels real, the family rejection feels real, and the way internalized shame manifests differently in each character feels achingly authentic. This isn't a book that ties everything up with a rainbow bow—it earns every moment of hope by showing us exactly what these boys are up against.
The ending wrapped up beautifully—I won't spoil anything, but it felt both authentic and earned. Sheppard doesn't give us easy answers, but he gives us something that feels true, and sometimes that's more valuable than comfort.
Invisible Boys is the kind of book that reminds you why gay literature matters. It's not just representation—it's recognition. Recognition of the particular ways we hurt, the specific courage it takes to exist as ourselves, and the bonds we form when we find each other in the darkness.
Solid A. This one's going to stay with me for a long time.
