YMMV / Boy's Life

• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mr. Fixit Mr. Lightfoot, Owen Cathcoate/The Candystick Kid (an alleged retired gunslinger who is quite formidable regardless of whether his stories are true), unexpectedly gifted pitcher Nemo, hell-raising escaped pet monkey Lucifer, and Greaser Delinquents ghost Little Stevie are all secondary characters with enormous presences in the fanbase.
• Nightmare Fuel: Boy's Life is a Slice of Life novel about a year in the life of a boy. It switches between sweet and heartwrenching, but overall it's a peaceful story (well, apart from the horrific murder that sets off the plot but nevermind that for now) and for the most part free of Nightmare Fuel- except for "Case #3432". You will never regard Unexplained Recovery and Disney Death the same way ever again.
• Tear Jerker: You won't get through this book without shedding at least a few tears over events like a dog and a young boy dying, a sympathetic newcomer failing to change his unhappy homelife, or a prostitute mourning her lost best chance at a better life...
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Nemo, the young pitching prodigy with a My Beloved Smother, only appears in about three scenes, when many fans wish he'd become a core member of Cory's group of friends.
  • Jack Marchette, the fire chief who once worked alongside Tom until Tom quit firefighting due to a traumatic event, leads the efforts to stop a major flood, and later is one of the only people to volunteer to help the sheriff during a Showdown at High Noon, feels like a Flat Character despite his noticeable involvement in interesting things and the quirkiness of his neighbors.
• Values Resonance: The Confederacy is casually glorified in the 1960s scenes in a way that 1991 Cory suspects had some tie-ins to casual racism, a point of view which became more prevalent in the 2010s and 20s.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: Who is finally able to put an end to the hellish spider monkey Lucifer? Why, a man named Gabriel, of course.
• The Woobie: Tom Mackenson becomes one over the course of the story, being horribly scarred by the murder and experiencing horrifying nightmares about the victim sinking and calling him. To add insult to injury, Tom learns one of his oldest friends is a dangerous racist and loses his job as a milkman due to the construction of a supermarket and is forced to become a dishwasher.
  • Cory's friend Ben could count, too, what with being a prevailing dork even by his friends' standards and having to deal with his alcoholic dad.