Danfort, E. M. (2018). The Miseducation of Cameron Post. London, England: Penguin Books.
Pages: 485
ISBN: 978-0-06-2020567
Price: $9.99
Format: ebook
Lexile Rating: 1120L
Awards: School Library Journal Best Book, Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book, Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, Amazon.com Best Books of the Month, ALA Booklist Editors' Choice
"Pining after straight girls--straight girls who are, by the way, in happy relationships with good-looking straight boys--when you live in a town filled with angry, Bible-pounding, probably gun-toting cowboys is a total no-win.” (p. 237)
Cameron is gay. But she lives in a conservative town in Montana where, while everyone is not necessarily super religious, there is pretty much an unspoken understanding that certain sins are just “wrong” and worse than others. At thirteen, while she is first discovering her sexuality with her best friend Irene, she isn’t thinking about that. But then her parents die, and while she is relieved that they never knew she was gay...she has to live with her super-religious, super-conservative aunt, who loves her...but would she still love her if she knew the truth?
After Cameron is discovered to have “Same Sex Attraction Disorder” after one night with a “straight” girl she is in love with, she is sent away to God’s Promise, a conversion camp where her aunt and her church community believe she will be “cured” of her sinful desires. The rest of the story is a humorous yet sobering look at the efforts of those with “good” intentions to cure something that can’t be cured, and the painful effect it can have on those who are unable to meet the impossible expectations placed on them.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post was recently released as a film, which I have not yet seen, and obtaining a copy of this book from the library took several months. I was number 73 on a hold list for 4 copies of the ebook when I first requested it and was only taken off the list at the end of November. I was excited to read this book from the moment I heard about it and was definitely not disappointed when I actually got a chance to read it. While it is not by any means a quick read--its page count is almost 500--it was thoroughly enjoyable despite the difficult subject matter. Cameron is sadly relatable to many gay and questioning teens as she tries to navigate life in a small town where everyone knows everything about everyone else and explores her sexuality with several girls who range from all-out lesbian to “mostly” straight. The novel culminates in the promise of hope and a journey to new beginnings with new friends, with an open ending that left me wondering what happened to Cameron and her friends.
Content-wise, The Miseducation of Cameron Post contains a lot of drug and sex references. There is one scene that, while not especially graphic, does depict Cameron and another girl having sex. Cameron also smokes marijuana often and occasionally drinks alcohol. Suicide and self harm are mentioned several times and one scene describes an act of self-mutilation fairly graphically. The book does not refrain from use of profanity, either. For all of these reasons, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is probably most suitable for teens older than 16, although it is not unsuitable for younger, mature teens.
I think what I enjoyed most about this book was the wide variety of different characters and how even the ones who were objectively kind of terrible people had some semblance of humanity to them, from Cameron’s aunt Ruth, who deals with her own illness by seeking refuge in God and the church, to her grandmother, who is well-meaning but old fashioned, to the leaders of the camp, Rick, a “reformed” former homosexual himself and his aunt Lydia, who Cameron notes seems rather pathetic when she gets past the rules and stuffiness of the woman. The characters all feel real and their stories are heartbreaking. The inclusion of Winkte, or Lakota two-spirit, Adam, excited me because I have never read a story that included or even mentioned the concept of two-spirit before. Overall, The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a highly enjoyable read and I am thrilled to rate it 5 out of 5 stars.
Star rating: 5/5
Below you’ll find a trailer for the movie, which was just released!
Horner, E. (2010). A love story starring my dead best friend. New York: Dial Books.
Pages: 272
ISBN: 978-1-101-42749-1
Price: $9.99
Format: ebook
Lexile Rating: 900L
Awards: None known
There was just this blankness. And all these things I couldn’t understand about Heather, suddenly starting to make sense.
I looked up at her, and started to try to say something—I wasn’t even sure what—and she flinched away. (p. 65)
Cass doesn’t know how she feels about her best friend, Julia. They always got along well despite their growing differences when they entered high school; Cass was more interested in mathletes and Julia was a drama kid. But rumors about Cass being gay had spread since middle school when her bully, Heather, called her a “dyke” and Cass wonders if it may be true, if she may be in love with Julia...who is now dead, by the way.
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend alternates between “then” and “now,” between her solo bike trip halfway across the country to take Julia’s ashes to California and her current attempts to help the drama kids...and Heather...get ready for the play Julia wrote for them to perform, that Julia planned to star in, before she died. But Cass never expected to learn so much from that bike trip, how to forgive and love and accept things that can’t change, or to learn to forgive someone who hurt her so much in her past.
Content-wise, there is little to complain about. Cass is a Quaker, and is therefore mostly morally conservative; she is a pacifist but her parents are supportive of her relationships and believe that any kind of love is good. She does not use drugs and drinks minimally and there is little profanity. A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend should be suitable for ages 12 and up.
A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend is somewhat ridiculous at parts, especially where the musical is concerned. Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad is ridiculous and the attempts of Julia’s friends to elevate it to a state of perfection it was never meant to achieve are equally ridiculous until a revealing moment near the end of the novel. Meanwhile, Cass’s journey of self-discovery and realizing that she doesn’t have to make her journey alone resonate deeply within me, as do her feelings of isolation, believing that Julia’s friends aren’t truly her own friends as well, until she is proven wrong in the most spectacular of ways. I rate A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend 4 out of 5 stars, because while it is not perfect, it revels in its imperfections and the characters are both enjoyable and true to life.
Star rating: 4/5
You can watch a book trailer by Arlington Public Library below.
Garden, N. (2013). Annie on my mind. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
Pages: 272
ISBN: 978-0-374-40011-8
Price: $8.79
Format: ebook
Lexile Rating: 1000L
Awards: Booklist Best Books of the '80s, ALA Best Books for Young Adults, Booklist Editors' Choice
Then a funny thing happened. We looked at each other, really looked, I mean, for the first time, and for a moment or two I don't think I could have told anyone my name, let alone where I was. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before, and I think—I know—it scared me. (p. 21)
Written in the early 80s, Annie on My Mind is one of the first of a still-too-small LGBT genre for teens. Liza is the student body president at Foster Academy in New York. Annie goes to a public school in a rough neighborhood. They seem to have nothing in common but when they meet for the first time at a museum, everything changes and Liza soon realizes she has feelings for Annie that she would have never expected.
There is little content to complain about in this novel. It was written in the 1980s when standards were a little higher regarding sex and language in novels; still, it was on banned book lists for years simply due to the sexuality of the main characters. It is rather tame, however, and suitable for ages 12 and older.
I first read Annie on My Mind about 10 years ago when I was first discovering my own sexuality. Although the book is now approaching 40 years old, it is a keystone of LGBT literature. It is not the happiest book; being written in the early 80s when being anything other than cisgender and straight was discouraged at best and dangerous at worst, it is no surprise that Liza and Annie are risking a lot to be together. But their love develops realistically and despite the fact that the book is utterly heartbreaking at times, it is an essential read for gay or questioning teens to see how far we have come and still how far we have to go. The addition of lesbian teachers, to show teens that they can survive the teen years even with the bigotry and hatred, and come out of it all with love, is an excellent addition as well. I rate it 4 out 5, because while it would have received 5 stars if I wrote this review in the 1980s, it is a bit dated now, thankfully.
Star rating: 4/5
The author, Nancy Garden, passed away in 2014, but in 2013 she was interviewed by the ALSC about her work, the first amendment, and how the LGBT genre has changed. It’s a great read! Check it out here.
Katcher, B. (2011). Almost perfect. New York: Delacorte Press/Ember.
Pages: 368
ISBN: 978-0-375-89379-7
Price: $9.35
Format: ebook
Lexile Rating: HL620L
Awards: Stonewall Book Award, YALSA Best Books for Young Adults
Sage was beautiful like a sunset. There was no one part of her that especially stood out, but viewed as a whole, there was no room for improvement. (p. 69)
Told from the perspective of a boy named Logan who just recently got over his breakup with his ex-girlfriend Brenda, Almost Perfect is more accurately the story of Sage, a girl who happens to be transgender, who reveals her secret to Logan after their first kiss, and how their relationship progresses and regresses as Logan handles and mishandles the revelation.
The story is told from Logan’s perspective as he explores his attraction to Sage both before and after the reveal. Logan is in no way the perfect narrator: he is judgmental, bigoted, and even scarily angry at times. But he is believable. And while his relationship with Sage isn’t perfect and is definitely not healthy for them, it’s honest and real...and painful.
Content-wise, there are sexual references and profanity that make the book unsuitable for young readers, but the majority of the content that causes me to give it a rating for ages 16 and up relates to the treatment of Sage. People are angry and violent toward her when they find out her secret. Logan almost punches her when he finds out and his reaction is downright mild compared to how her dad treats her. She considers and attempts suicide and faces physical violence just for being who she is and has to live in secrecy, all of which are real things that trans teens have to face or consider, but are hard to deal with when reading a book.
I had a hard time reading this book. I had to put it down five times when I can normally read a book all the way through the first time I pick it up. The narrator is infuriating. I don’t like being in his head and reading his thoughts, particularly those about Sage. He spends so much of the novel angry at her for “lying” to him and feeling “betrayed” by her without considering how terrifying things are for her or trying to understand her at all. When he finally does start to understand, it is too late, and that’s the reason I decided to give the book 3 stars. It may deserve more but until the ending I was going to give it 1 or 2. It is not a pleasant read and Logan and the rest of the characters are extremely unfair to Sage...but it’s real. That’s how people were and how people are and it’s a unique experience to me to read a book from the perspective of someone just starting to change his outlook on things like sexuality and gender...but I still didn’t like it.
Star rating: 3/5
You can check out what other people thought by visiting Almost Perfect’s Goodreads page here!
Albertalli, B. (2018). Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens agenda. London: Penguin Books.
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780062348692
Price: $9.89
Format: ebook
Lexile Rating: HL640L
Awards: William C. Morris Award: Best Young Adult Debut of the Year
As a side note, don’t you think everyone should have to come out? Why is straight the default? Everyone should have to declare one way or another, and it shouldn't be this big awkward thing whether you're straight, gay, bi, or whatever. I'm just saying. (p. 176)
Simon knows he is gay but not many other people do. There is Blue, his online penpal, who he is careful not to reveal too much personal information to and who does the same to him, because both are the only ones who know each other’s secrets, without knowing who they actually are. At least, Blue is the only one who knows at first. Then there’s Martin, Simon’s classmate, who discovers his secret and blackmails him in order to keep it a secret.
Simon is fine with being gay but doesn’t want to deal with coming out. He isn’t entirely sure how his family and friends will react but he is pretty sure they would be fine with it. This differs a bit from a lot of LGBT novels in which the protagonist struggles with their sexual orientation and identity and whether their family will disown them. Instead, Simon’s major worries revolve around the fact that his feelings for Blue are starting to develop into something more, especially when they realize they attend the same school and may know each other, and keeping Martin happy so his secret won’t be revealed. But of course, it is, publicly, and the rest of the novel is spent with Simon dealing with the aftermath of the reveal and the confrontation of Martin.
There are sexual references in Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda and mentions of masturbation but nothing explicitly graphic. Profanity is at a minimum as well. Overall, it is just a coming-of-age novel that is probably suitable for ages 12 and up.
I really enjoyed this book. I would love to see the film adaptation, Love, Simon when I get a chance. Simon is very real and his frustration with having to come out and exhaustion with the whole experience is very, very true to life for me. I was also fed up with the expectation that I had to come out when I realized I liked girls as well. I didn’t have to, though, and fortunately no one outed me against my will, and my coming out was gradual, with no big announcement or reveal, everyone just eventually knew I was gay. It would have been nice for Simon to have that as well, but I know many people who were also outed against their will like he was. His family and friends are also true to life, at equal times frustrating and supportive, and remind me a great deal of my own friends (if not my family, which was not quite as supportive when they found out). I appreciate that Simon and Blue ultimately cope with coming out in a positive way and the story ends with hope and not sadness. There is already so much sadness when it comes to LGBT fiction.
Star rating: 5/5
There’s a trailer for the movie, Love, Simon, below.
Patterson, J. (2005). Maximum Ride: The angel experiment. New York: Little, Brown,; Hatchette Group USA.
Pages: 464
ISBN: 978-0-7595-1418-8
Price: $9.14
Lexile: 700L
Format: ebook
Awards: ALA Best Books for Young Adults
Max’s family is…unconventional, to say the least. There are six of them: Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel. Max is the oldest, which isn’t saying much, since she’s only fourteen years old herself. But she’s the leader, and she has to keep her family safe. From what, you wonder? Well, from the School, the whitecoats, the ones who made her and her family what they are—mutants. See, Max and the others are genetic experiments who ran away from home years ago and have been in hiding ever since. Only now, they’ve been found, and the smallest member of the flock, Angel, has been taken, so it’s up to the others to get her back by any means necessary.
“In the dictionary, next to the word stress, there is a picture of a midsize mutant stuck inside a dog crate, wondering if her destiny is to be killed or to save the world. Okay, not really. But there should be.”
The Angel Experiment is the first book in the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. I have a friend who has been trying to get me to start this series for about seven years now. I was always put off by the fact the premise sounds almost identical to that of one of my favorite TV shows from the early 2000s, Dark Angel, and I worried I might unfairly compare the two. After reading the book, I still see a lot of similarities (the protagonists are girls named Max, are genetic mutations, don’t know who their “real” parents are, and escaped from a facility where they were experimented on along with other kids like them) but the plots take different enough courses I did not compare them as much as I expected. Maximum Ride is obviously intended for a younger audience than Dark Angel and the characters are younger as well. The characters are interesting; although most of the story is told solely from Max’s first person perspective, at certain points the story shifts into third person from one or more of the other kids’ points of view. This is an unusual choice, but it allows the reader to see events that Max is not present for, that would be limited by solely focusing on her perspective only.
Content-wise, there is violence and death, as well as medical experimentation that could be scary for very young readers, but is probably acceptable for ages 12 and older. Profanity is mild and usually only alluded to. There is very little sexual content aside from one kiss and the only problem I found was a poor depiction of a young boy with schizophrenia (which is forgivable given that the book is written from Max’s perspective and she is not likely to be especially sensitive to mental illness). The book is written in a very simple manner and shouldn’t be a difficult read for most teens. Overall I rate The Angel Experiment 4 out of 5 stars. I wouldn’t mind continuing the series at a later date because I would like to see what happens to the kids later. However, the plot is not the most original, so I am reluctant to give it 5 stars based on the first book.
Cabot, M. (2000). The Princess Diaries. (The Princess Diaries, v.1.). New York: HarperCollins.
Pages: 363
ISBN: 978-0-06-195846-5
Price: $9.98
Lexile: 920L
Format: ebook
Awards: ALA Best Books for Young Adults
Mia Thermopolis is pretty much the definition of uncool: she’s conventionally unattractive, unusually tall for a girl, and usually tags along with her equally unpopular best friend, Lilly, who has a public access television show. Plus, now her mom is dating her algebra teacher…and did I mention Mia is also failing math? Because she’s also failing math. And now her father has sprung the biggest news of all on her, news that she could never have expected, and certainly would never believe: she is a princess, and the heir to the throne of Genovia, now that he is unable to have more children. Needless to say, Mia is surprised, but absolutely mortified when she learns that she will need to train to become a princess by none other than her grandmother, with whom she has never gotten along!
Princess lessons.
I am not kidding. I have to go straight from my Algebra review session every day to princess lesons at the Plaza with my grandmother.
Okay, so if there’s a God, how could this have happened? (135)
The Princess Diaries is the first book in the series by the same name. It is also, of course, a Disney movie, which I watched for the first time after reading the book. Honestly, I did enjoy the movie a lot more than the book, but the book itself is an entertaining, fun, quick read. The diary-style format is easy to follow, so despite The Princess Diaries’ length—363 pages—the word count is not as great as that of a book written in chapters. Most diary entries are only a few pages long, with some containing only a few sentences. This makes the book an excellent choice for more reluctant readers or younger teens. I would recommend The Princess Diaries for ages 12 and up for this reason and the fact that very little content within the novel would be considered offensive. Sexual references are minimal and there is little other content that would be troubling for sensitive readers besides some outdated uses of words that have since become slurs.
I rate The Princess Diaries 3 out of 5 stars. It is an entertaining read and I enjoyed it enough to seek out the movie after I finished reading it. I did notice that the book seemed dated now, having been written in the year 2000, as a few times throughout the novel, Mia laments the fact that Lilly’s brother is tying up the phone lines at their house by being on the Internet. Since dialup is virtually nonexistent in 2018 and most teens have never experienced it, that aspect of Mia’s life may seem strange. However, those moments are minimal.
Star rating: 3/5
You can see the trailer for the movie adaptation below!
"She was wonderful, and I was pretty sure I was in love with her.
So how come I wanted to leave so badly?” (10)
Ava has a super cool girlfriend, supportive parents, and the kind of life many young lesbians dream about having. So when she decides to leave her public school life behind and enrolls in the super-preppy Billy Hughes School for Academic Excellence, an elite school where students actually care about bettering themselves academically, it comes as a shock to her parents, friends, and especially her girlfriend. But Ava’s decision stems from the fact that she has never once made a decision that was truly her own, always going along with what other people think is best for her. While her girlfriend and parents are very much part of the counterculture--obnoxiously so, to the point of rebuking anything that is too “normal”--Ava has a longing to “fit in” and be “normal,” including wondering if she is truly a lesbian at all.
Content-wise, Pink is relatively inoffensive. There are sexual references, as this is a novel about high school, and there will always be sexual references in high school. There is minimal violence and several references to illegal activities such as theft and drug use, but mostly just marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol. The content that I do find troubling, however, and have to mention especially because this book is advertised as “LGBT friendly” is that, as a member of said community myself, I find nothing about this book LGBT friendly at all. In fact, it can be downright upsetting to young lesbians or bisexuals who are looking for a book to help them come to terms with their own sexuality.
The main problem I have with this book is that the word “bisexual” is never uttered, not even once, by any character. The fact that Ava may be bisexual never crosses anyone’s mind, until the very end of the book, when a character other than herself addresses the possibility in the vaguest words possible, in a way implying that bisexuality is in some way “trendy.” Apart from the fact every character in the novel is a walking stereotype, teen characters speak in ways that no real-life teen would ever talk, and most conversations among the “screws” are literally paraphrased from misinformed and misleading Tumblr posts I have seen over the years, it is obvious to me that the author has no idea what actual teenagers are like or what it is like being a young lesbian or bisexual.
Ava’s journey of self-discovery is naive at best and offensive at worse; she as a character never grows or admits fault for anything she has done; everything is always someone else’s fault. While her girlfriend, Chloe, is terrible and mean to everyone, Ava refuses to take responsibility for the hurtful things she says and does to everyone around her in her quest to be a “normal” (i.e., “straight”) girl. For Ava, the color pink, which she adores so much, is synonymous with the concept of “normalcy” and “straightness,” which is a slap in the face to any woman-attracted woman who loves the color pink and loves being feminine while also acknowledging she still loves women. No other lesbians in this book are femme at all and the book never acknowledges that as an option; lesbians must be nerds or emo-goths, with no room for femininity whatsoever. While I do not believe this was necessarily Wilkinson’s intention in writing this novel, the implication unfortunately stands.
As well as the problems regarding the depiction of lesbians, Ava, the only bisexual (even if she is not referred as a bisexual within the narrative) is a poor representation of bisexuality. Bisexuals already experience stereotypes that they are unfaithful or more likely to cheat on their partners than gay or straight people are, so the fact that Ava cheats on her girlfriend twice (and tries to rationalize it as “not really cheating” since she wasn’t cheating with a girl) does nothing to help dispel this stereotype.
I wanted to find something about this book to appeal to readers of any kind, but I unfortunately am unable to think of a single person I think would be benefited by reading this. The problem is that the concept could have been good; a novel about a girl pressured into being a lesbian, but wondering if she might like boys as well could be an excellent and much-needed bisexual narrative and a fresh take on the “coming out” novel. Unfortunately, the execution was poor and offensive, and I believe reading this would do more harm to LGBT teens than it would help them.
I rate Pink 1 out of 5 stars. While occasionally the prose is well-written and the concept of the novel was intriguing, the execution left much to be desired. Characters are all one-dimensional stereotypes and the protagonist, Ava, is as mean as the characters she despises for doing the same things she does. Basically, Pink is Mean Girls with lesbians and bisexuals, but not nearly as entertaining. It is suitable for ages 14 and older, although I would not recommend it myself.
