Queer YA Blog Log

A blog for discussing and reviewing LGBTQA young adult literature and resources.

[mollymwetta]

I previously wrote about 2015 new releases in LGTBQ young adult fiction, but now I’ve added some to the list. Most come out in Fall 2015. 

[queeryabloglog]

For Dr. Howard

Hi, Vivian!

For your navigational pleasure, here are the tags that directly correlate to your requirements for this assignment.

Audio

Award-winning fiction

Banned/challenged books

Fantasy and science fiction

Films

Graphic novels

Hi/lo books

Historical fiction

Magazines

Realistic fiction

Revised folk or fairy tale

Romance and relationships

Series fiction

Websites

There’s also an FAQ and an Ask Me Anything that you can access by clicking on the little striped box in the upper left hand corner.

Enjoy!

[queeryabloglog]

Review: The Geography Club, dir. Gary Entin

Huffington, M., and Bretti, A. (producer), and Entin, G (director). (2014). The Geography Club [motion picture]. United States: Shoreline Entertainment.

Intended age group: 13-16.

When Russell Middlebrook comes out to his best friend Min, he is surprised when she comes out right back to him. Together they form the Geography Club, a meeting-place for other queer teens that functions under a false name to keep their identities secret. But when students think it’s an actual geography club, they begin to want to join, and no, I am not kidding, that is SERIOUSLY one of the central conflicts of this awful thing.

It is impossible to find queer movies with a PG-13 rating. IM. POSS. I. BLE. That is the only reason why I am reviewing The Geography Club, a shlocky film based on a shlocky book which got way, way more attention than it ever deserved. The characters are bland and forgettable, the dialogue trite, and the plot nothing we haven’t seen in LGBTQA media roughly ten thousand times before. Oh, white suburban “normal” guy is struggling with his sexuality? Check. Has a crush on the school jock (who just HAPPENS to be gay also, who’d’a thunk it)? Check. Has LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE GOING ON IN HIS LIFE? Checketty check check check! C.R.A.Z.Y. and Beautiful Thing both tell pretty much this exact same story, each with more nuance, grace, wit, and genuine emotion in any given scene than The Geography Club has in its entire runtime. However, those movies are both rated R for reasons that make absolutely no sense (par for the course with queer movies), so here we are.

I will say this, though: The Geography Club is better as a movie than a book, because at least the movie does not subject you to Russell Middlebrooks’ dull internal monologues.

Watch if you like...: C.R.A.Z.Y., Beautiful Thing, Get Real, not enjoying things.

Rating: *

[queeryabloglog]

Review: TG Life Magazine

TGLife. (2014). TGLife. Retrieved from http://tglife.com/

Intended age group: 18+

[NOTE: The few magazines for LGBTQA teens that I could find were all defunct. Rather than write a review for a publication that no longer exists, I have opted to review magazines intended for an adult audience, provided that they don’t have very “adult” content. Cheating? Maybe, but bear in mind that teens would be reading these anyway, given the lack of material created for their demographic.]

It is very difficult to find magazines aimed at a transgender audience instead of their “admirers.” Online magazine TGLife is one of the few that actively targets transgender people, particularly trans women, with articles on “passing,” voice feminization, social issues, and profiles of transgender people in business and entertainment. It also includes message forums, columns, video channels, and sections where members may submit fiction and poetry.

TGLife is a very worthy publication, with a lot of great material. (The Spotlight feature is especially neat.) However, the structure of its website needs a lot of work! Broken links abound, tabs lead nowhere in particular, and every other page seems to be about some mysterious person called “404.”* The magazine has incredible potential, but they need to fire their web designer.

Rating: ***

* I’m hilarious.

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Young Avengers Omnibus

Intended age group: 12-16

Gillen, K. (writer), McKelvie, J. (illustrator), and Wilson, M (colorist). (2014). Young avengers omnibus. New York, NY: Marvel Entertainment.

Being a teenager is hard. It’s even harder when you have to save the world on a curfew. This ragtag group of young superheores includes teen wizard Wiccan, his boyfriend Hulkling, interdimensional powerhouse Miss America, alien prince Noh-Varr, genius Prodigy, archer and professional rich girl Hawkeye, and Asgardian god of mischief Loki, who band together to fight evil, space invaders, and parasites from parallel universes. 

I never read superhero comics when I was a teen. Partly that was because I was very pretentious, but it was also because I never saw myself reflected in the pages of the superhero comics I could find. If I’d gotten my mitts on Young Avengers at the time, it would have been a different story. This series is fresh, vibrant, witty, and sincere even as it pokes fun at its own genre. The characters feel real even when they are time-travelling mutant gods, speaking and acting like actual people (and, more to the point, actual teenagers). It’s really just a bonus that almost everyone on the team turns out to be some variant of queer- even serial boykiller Kate Bishop “isn’t that straight”- and that Hukling and Wiccan’s love for one another literally saves the world at one point. (But what a bonus it is!)

Read if you like...: The Runaways series, the new Ms. Marvel series, Lost At Sea by Bryan Lee O’Malley.

Rating: *****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Get Yr Rights

Streetwise and Safe/BreakOUT!. (2015). Get yr rights. Retrieved from http://getyrrights.org/

Intended age group: 16-18.

A collaboration between New York-based group Streetwise and Safe and New Orleans’ BreakOUT!, Get Yr Rights is a networking project dedicating to providing information and resources to LGBTQA youth of colour, especially in response to police aggression and legal discrimination. The site offers information on policies, court cases, relevant news stories, and demonstrations happening throughout the United States. Searchable by region and including a section devoted to toolkits for youth organizations, Get Yr Rights has been promoted by several library sites as a new and vital addition to LGBTQA resources.

Most of the library-related websites I found for LGBTQA youth were filled with book lists, bibliographies, and resources for parents of queer teens. While these are all very important things, and I’m glad that they exist, Get Yr Rights is the first site for queer youth that’s made me feel genuinely excited. It is a site for young activists and community organizers, the first of its kind that I’ve seen for LGBTQA youth, and a slap in the face to anyone who labels this new generation as “apolitical” or “apathetic.” Although it does have some organizational issues (the layout is somewhat confusing, and it does not seem to have a search bar), the organization’s passion and potency shines through on every page. The resources provided are fantastic, with several suggestions and programs for workshops that can be used by many organizations. Get Yr Right’s dedication to serving LGBTQA youth (who are statistically more likely to be victims of violence than their straight and cisgender counterparts) is admirable, and I hope that similar organizations will follow its lead in countries around the world.

Rating: ****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: The ALA Rainbow Booklist

American Library Association. (2015). Rainbow books - GLBTQ Books for children & teens. Retrieved from http://glbtrt.ala.org/rainbowbooks/

Intended age group: All ages (though it may be more appealing to librarians and parents than teens)

This list, released every January, provides a full list of books published within a calendar year with LGBTQA themes for youth. With years from 2008-onward available, the site provides a thorough runthrough of LGBTQA fiction for teens and children. Each list includes a full citation (including ISBN) and a brief recap of the plot, as well as a suggested age bracket.

While the Rainbow List is certainly a helpful resource for teens looking for LGBTQA literature, its online incarnation has not been designed with teens in mind. The layout is basic and very dark, and the whole site has a very unpolished, I-just-got-a-LiveJournal look to it that doesn’t appeal to the eye. Nevertheless, teens looking for new fiction will likely find this site helpful, and may even use it as a jumping-off point for lists and guides of their own, ones with more teen appeal.

Rating: ***

[queeryabloglog]

Review: The Rainbow Trilogy, by Alex Sanchez

Sanchez, A. (2001). Rainbow boys. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Sanchez, A. (2003). Rainbow high. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Sanchez, A. (). Rainbow road. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Intended age group: 14-18.

Jason Carrillo is a jock with a girfriend. Nelson Glassman is a flamboyant activist. Kyle Meeks is an everyman (and just possibly the dullest person ever to walk the planet). The three boys only have two things in common: they all attend the same high school, and they’re all gay. The Rainbow Trilogy follows the three of them through high school and on to college as they deal with high school, boy drama, and the pressure of being a gay teen.

Sometimes you need to reread older queer YA to understand just how good you have it now. Published before David Levithan wrote Boy Meets Boy and made queer YA writers realize that they actually had to try now, this series is a bland mess that somehow manages to be both boring and offensive. It reads more like an instructive pamphlet on The Reality of the Gay Teenager than a series of books. Its characters barely even exist in one dimension, let alone three. (This is particularly true of the series’ female characters, who could all easily be replaced by Swiffer Sweepers without any noticeable impact on the plot.) The protagonists are intolerable, the writing is sloppy, and the plot patched together from the duller kind of after school specials. The Rainbow Trilogy made me think longingly of The Geography Club. And I HATE The Geography Club.

Read if you like...: The Geography Club by Brent Hartinger, Sprout by Dale Peck, David Inside Out by Lee Bantle.

Rating: *

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Silhouette of a Sparrow, by Molly Beth Griffin

Griffin, M. B. (2012). Silhouette of a sparrow. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions.

Intended age group: 15-18.

Set in the Roaring Twenties, Silhouette of a Sparrow follows a summer in the life of sixteen-year-old Garnet Richardson, who is sent to the countryside to escape a polio epidemic in the city. Disenchanted with her mother’s plan for her life- an early marriage, lots of children, and a sedate middle class existence- she revels in her newfound freedom in rural Minnesota, working in a hat shop and rediscovering her childhood love of ornithology. She also meets Isabella, a daring and beautiful flapper who dances at a local club, and begins to realize that another life is possible for her.

Silhouette of a Sparrow is a beautifully written book- the reader feels what Garnet feels, from her burgeoning passion for Isabella to her excitement when she sees a rare bird. However, at a spare 224 pages the story is a little thin. While Garnet’s increased sense of self and knowledge of her own worth is competently communicated by Griffin, an extra hundred pages or so would have improved this book and let us get to know her a little better.

Read if you like...: The Shell House by Linda Newbery, Wildthorn by Jane Eagland, Letters in the Attic by Bonnie Shimko.

Rating: ***

[queeryabloglog]

Review: My Prairie Home, by Rae Spoon

Spoon, R. (2013). My prairie home. Calgary: Saved By Radio.

Intended age group: 14-18.

Canadian indie darling Rae Spoon’s latest album, My Prairie Home, is all about the past. Eschewing their former electronic beats in favour of subtle hints of folk, gospel, and even country, the album’s nineteen songs explore themes of family, religion, fear, gender, and self-acceptance. Spoon’s evangelical upbringing is particularly noticeable on this album; their plaintive, dreamy vocals give their songs the weight and drama of campfire confessionals, turning lyrics about unwanted dresses and playing cowboy into 21st century psalms.

Rae Spoon, who now uses the pronoun “they” after a decade of identifying as a trans man, is a storyteller. (Their recent “Gender Failure” tour with author Ivan Coyote is further proof of this.) However, their songs do not lay out straightforward narratives, but pinball back and forth in time and space, letting feelings and events collide. This dreamy album is not the thing to play if you’re looking for something to dance to (with the exception of the optimistic “I Want”, most of the songs are relatively somber). But if you need a voice to keep you company on a quiet night in, My Prairie Home is a safe bet. (And the whole album is on Rdio!)

Listen if you like...: Origin: Orphan by the Hidden Cameras, A Mad and Faithful Telling by DeVotchKa, In Conflict by Owen Pallet.

Rating: ****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Almost Perfect, by Brian Katcher

Katcher, B. (2009). Almost perfect. New York, NY: Delacorte Press.

Intended age group: 15-18.

After dumping his cheating girlfriend, Logan’s eyes fall on Sage, a new student in his small town high school. Sage is beautiful, but strange: she seems to have been raised in almost total isolation, and her over-protective parents refuse to let her date. It’s not until Logan kisses her that Sage reveals her big secret: she is transgender. This information sends Logan into a tailspin, which unfortunately continues through the whole book and takes precious time away from the parts that could actually be interesting.

I can’t say that Logan is the worst protagonist of any of the books I’ve reviewed here so far- that spot still goes to Gabe from Beautiful Music For Ugly Children. However, Logan is a VERY close second. His horrible (and violent) reaction to Sage’s revelation, not to mention his preoccupation with her trans status and constant worries that he might be gay, seem to take up the bulk of the second half of the book. His transphobia is certainly true to life for many cisgender men, particularly teenagers in small towns, but Logan never seems to learn from his own intolerance and become a bigger, better person; instead he just wastes the reader’s time with his own back-and-forth dithering. Sage is the standout character in this book, with an interesting voice and story, but she is overshadowed by Logan’s whining, and repeatedly forgives him for his rude (even cruel) behaviour. Almost Perfect may well have been Almost Perfect if it had been Sage’s book instead of Logan’s. As it is, it’s an awkward mess.

Read if you like...: Rethinking Normal: A Memoir In Transition by Katie Rain Hill and Ariel Schrag (an actual book about a trans girl BY a trans girl!), Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin, Luna by Julie Anne Peters (PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION, THE TWO BOOKS ARE JUST COMPARABLY AWFUL).

Rating: **

[queeryabloglog]

Review: I’ll Give You The Sun, by Jandy Nelson

Nelson, J. (2014). I’ll give you the sun. New York, NY: Dial Books.

Intended age group: 16-18.

At thirteen, twins Jude (daring, bold, outrageous) and Noah (shy, artistic, passionate) are best friends. At sixteen, they barely talk. I’ll Give You the Sun explores their lives and the radical changes they ace in three short years, from religious epiphanies to first loves to little family earthquakes.

Alternating between the two main characters (Noah at age thirteen, Jude at age sixteen), this Printz-winner is intricately written and compelling, with unusual narrative flourishes. It deftly explores the relationship between joy and sorrow, love and art, and time and pain. The one major weak point in this beautiful story is Oscar, Jude’s love interest. An older boy with a dark past, a British accent, and a motorcycle, he seems to have been assembled from a list of Sexy Bad Boy Attributes rather than fleshed out like a real character. However, the book’s strengths outweigh this one awkward misstep. It is a beautiful, rich, and searing read.

Read if you like...: The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley, Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho, When Everything Feels Like The Movies by Raziel Reid.

Rating: ****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Every Day audiobook, by David Levithan

Levithan, D. (2012). Every day [audiobook]. Narrated by Alex McKenna. New York, NY: Knopf Books.

Intended age group: 14-18.

A is used to the routine by now: Every day, they wake up in a different body; every day, they take on someone else’s identity for twenty four hours. Everything about their life- family, ethnicity, even gender- is transient, and over the years, A has developed a list of rules to deal with the constant change. They may not be happy with their odd existence, but they’ve learned to accept it- until they meet Rhiannon, the girlfriend of one of their temporary identities, and find themself falling in love for the first time.

David Levithan’s always been a fantastic writer, and this book sees him at the top of his game. A’s wry, wistful narration pulls the story forward, infusing its sci-fi strangeness with emotion, wit, and pathos. Alex McKenna’s rather raspy, androgynous voice brings them to life perfectly, giving them an existence that transcends gender.

Listen if you like...: Levithan’s other books, Looking For Alaska by John Green, Ask the Passengers by A.S. King.

Rating: *****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: aTEEN

Attitude. (2014). aTEEN, Issue 1.

Intended age group: 16-18.

After multiple attempts to find a magazine for LGBTQA teens that was still actually active, I stumbled across aTEEN, a subsidy of British gay magazine Attitude. It is the only magazine for gay youth currently being published, available both in print and online, and it could be a fantastic resource for LGBTQA teens. 

Unfortunately, like Attitude itself, aTEEN is more invested in pictures of shirtless men and interviews with celebrities than actual coverage of relevant issues for LGBTQA teens. (Actually, calling this an LGBTQA publication at all is slightly overkill- it’s strictly G.) There is, of course, nothing wrong with pictures of attractive people or with celebrity gossip, but as the only publication for queer teens, you’d think the editors would feel the need to make the magazine a little “weightier.” Its layout is stylish and its production values impeccable, but aTEEN is little more than a slightly sanitized, watered-down version of its predecessor.

Read if you like: The Advocate, Out, PINK Magazines.

Rating: **

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Annie on My Mind, by Nancy Garden

Garden, N. (1982). Annie on my mind. New York, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Intended age group: 14-16

Ambitious, intelligent Liza, a private school student with an eye for architecture, is overjoyed to find a friend in Annie, a whimsical girl from the wrong side of the tracks. They become fast friends... and then, slowly, more than friends. Liza has never thought of herself as the kind of person who worries about what other people think, but when her relationship with Annie is discovered, she suddenly finds that she can’t think about much else. Will the girls’ relationship last, or will Liza find herself unable to deal with the pressure of having Annie on her mind?

Chances are, if you read queer YA at all you’ve already read Annie on My Mind. It’s a classic, and for good reason. A constant presence on banned book lists (it was even publicly burned at one point in the nineties), Annie on My Mind was one of the first young adult books to feature a lesbian main character, and it set the tone for many queer young adult novels that followed it, from the tumultuous excitement of first love to the pain and shame of forced outings. However, unlike many of her successors (whose names I will not mention but may or may not rhyme with Schnulie Schnanne Schneters), Garden treats these topics with a disarming frankness, avoiding excessive melodrama and favouring instead a brisk, matter-of-fact approach to the story she is telling.

Read if you like...: Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters (sigh), Empress of the World by Sara Ryan, Kissing Kate by Lauren Myracle.

Rating: ****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Big Guy, by Robin Stevenson

Stevenson, R. (2008). Big guy. Victoria, BC: Orca Soundings.

Intended age group: 14-18

Self-described loser Derek’s life is less than perfect. His mother abandoned him for a religious cult, his father is less than supportive (to say the least), and he spends his days since dropping out of high school working in a nursing home. Things start to look up when he finds himself falling in love with Ethan, a boy he met online. However, Ethan might not be in love with Derek, but who Derek used to be- he’s only seen an old picture of Derek and doesn’t know that he’s gained almost a hundred pounds since then because of depression. When Ethan says he wants to meet in real life, Derek has to decide whether to take a chance or keep on lying.

There are relatively few books available for LGBTQA hi/lo readers, and this offering from Orca Soundings is one of the best. Clearly written, with an engaging storyline and an authentic-sounding (if occasionally whiny) protagonist, Big Guy is a nice addition to the LGBTQA literary canon, and perfect for readers who want a high interest book with a queer twist.

Read if you like...: Sticks and Stones by Beth Goobie, Bull’s Eye by Sarah N. Harvey, Jacked by Carrie Mac

Rating: ****

[queeryabloglog]

Review: Ma vie en rose

Scotta, C. (producer) & Berliner, A (director). (1997). Ma vie en rose [motion picture]. France: Sony Pictures Classics.

Intended age group: 12-18

Ludovic “Ludo” Fabre knows that when she grows up she will be a woman. Her family, however, disagrees, telling her that her body and chromosomal makeup make her a boy. Their increasing insistance that she recognize herself as a boy and forget her true identity throw a wrench in her plans to marry the boy next door.

Ma vie en rose is rated R, and technically considered an adult film. However, this innocent coming-of-age story has very little strong language or violence (indeed, less of both than many PG-rated films), and is perfectly suitable for teen viewings. More importantly, trans youth may see themselves in Ludo as she struggles to comprehend gender, family, and her place in the world. (Ludo’s youthful understanding of chromosomes is particularly winning- she is told that girls have two Xs and boys have an X and a Y, so she reasons that the “leg” of one of her Xs must have gotten snapped off somehow.) Funny, touching, and occasionally disturbing as it explores the entrenched prejudices of Ludo’s family, Ma vie en rose is a classic story of a young person’s struggle to assert themself against all odds.

Watch if you like...: Tomboy, Breakfast On Pluto, Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Rating: ****