Where We Belong is a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. Based in modern-day Johannesburg, the book navigates the lives of the men in Banele’s life, through his lens, while telling his coming of age story as a bisexual teenager.

Told from Banele’s perspective, Thandeka explores the sensitivities around toxic-masculinity and the hunger to own one’s self for themselves. 

Banele, a senior in high school has just had his heart broken, by a girl. While navigating his first teenage heartbreak, dodging mean-boys on the school grounds and trying to live up to his father’s expectations of what a man should be; he falls into the soft arms of Jabulani.

Jabulani and Banele’s meet cute propels the story and Thandeka shows us how manhood can be multifaceted through the men we encounter in the two boys lives as well as their own transitions from boyhood. Jabulani is dealing with his own disappointments and discoveries about manhood, abandonment and heartbreak.

Though foils of each other, the two are also a balm to each other. Through the constant juxtaposition of their lives, Thandeka reveals how socialisation, parenting, environment and compassion or lack thereof can make or break a man.

What I found most profound about the book is how the author, herself a high school senior, could handle such sensitive topics on growing up male with consideration, deliberation and intention. Most of all, it’s the empathy imbued in this story that will lure you in.

South Africa is crowded with real-life stories of broken men or men breaking each other to become men and thereby creating a perpetual cycle of trauma, toxicity and shattered lives. In Where We Belong, Thandeka highlights so clearly the role of agency and owning your being in navigating who and what you become.

She covers themes from broken families, absent fathers, bullying, friendship, love, abandonment, feeling like you have no voice, heartbreak, reconciliation, conformity and what we do and become when trying to survive.

This is a brave story from a brave young voice, written so delicately you’re guaranteed to be sucked in from the get go. It is a love-letter to young boys in South Africa who are yearning to be seen and heard. It is also a clarion call to those who know better to do better, and those who are meant to safeguard a growing generation of men to step up to the plate and create safer spaces not just for survival but for the boy-child to flourish and become.