Openly Straight

Rafe is an openly gay teenager in Boulder, CO, a place where his sexuality is rarely looked down upon. His friends and family are more than supportive; his hippie parents even threw him a surprise coming out party.  But Rafe is tired of always being labeled as "the gay guy." There's more to him beyond his sexuality. So Rafe heads out to a brand new, all boys boarding school and willingly puts himself back in the closet so his other traits can shine through.  What follows is an interesting exploration of how Rafe can or cannot be true to himself when he omits a major aspect of his life and how this omission impacts not only his actions, but his peers' as well. 

In Openly Straight, Bill Konigsberg puts an interesting twist on the LGBT young adult novel. Many times the struggle is coming out or finding acceptance as a gay teen, but here the struggle (in Rafe's original assessment) is finding acceptance as a regular guy. Konigsberg explores labels outside of "gay" and how pigeonholing people into these roles almost never reflects accurate assessments of their lives.  Eventually Rafe comes to meaningful realizations about how he perceives himself as a result of his experiment.

I would recommend this book to any teen who shows interest in LGBT literature, particularly because it is a refreshing plot.  The focus on other teen issues is also prevalent and would appeal to teens looking for books that deal with bullying, depression, exploration of sexuality, and/or school hierarchies.  Sometimes books about LGBT issues can be (rightly) overly emotional. This book succeeds in discussing difficult topics with humor. It's a very, very funny book with a lot of heart.

P.S. I knew I loved this book when on page 12, a boy is described as wearing a shirt that says "I Want to Go To There." Later, my love was reaffirmed when a character states that he's upset because he didn't get tickets to the New Kids on the Block reunion tour.  

Gone, Gone, Gone

Gone, Gone, Gone takes place about a year following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when the DC-area sniper was at large.  The novel captures the heightened fear that the sniper brought to the nation. It also comments on the way we often try to take ownership of the tragedies that happen to our communities and the nation as a whole.

The novel utilizes dual narration, with alternating chapters of Lio and Craig's perspective on the terror and its impact on their burgeoning relationship.  Craig is an ultra-sensitive teen, still reeling from the loss of his first love, and Lio is a cancer survivor from NY who is new to the DC area. The two have an immediate connection with each other, and work toward a relationship all the while working through their feelings on who can claim ownership of the tragedies, who is allowed to feel scared, why they personally shouldn't feel scared, etc.

It can get pretty angsty and at times, confusing, but the teen's dramatic interactions ring true.  They are informed by the author's (Hanna Moskowitz) own experiences during the sniper attacks and I think that many readers who have experienced a tragic national event will understand the emotions Lio and Craig experience. I personally won't forget how freaked out I was by the DC sniper and I was all the way in Boston when that happened. [Seriously, I once had a nightmare that I was a victim. I woke up the next day to news that there was, in fact, another victim. My father then walked past me in the hallway when I said good morning and I was convinced for about 5 minutes that I was a ghost.] Fast forward to the Boston Marathon 2 months ago and while I was terrified, I wanted nothing more than to go about my normal routine and prove that I was strong (Boston Strong, if you will).

What I liked best about the novel was that all of the conflicts were related to the national tragedies and not LGBT matters.  There are no negative consequences - broken hearts aside - from the main characters' homosexuality.  It's just a normal thing.

Sparks: The Epic, Completely True, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie

Sparks is an LGBT themed book that I read immediately after The Miseducation of Cameron Post in order to see how they compared.  While they both touch upon religion and its connection to sexuality and life, Sparks is definitely more comedic and light-hearted in its approach.

Debbie is in love with her best friend, Lisa.  Enough in love that she frequently attends Christian Youth Group sessions where they constantly harp on the dangers of homosexuality, just to spend more time with her.  It doesn't stop there. Debbie never swears, attempts to block out all improper thoughts, and only watches good old-fashioned family TV (i.e. Full House - this book is so full of Full House references that it is a 90s nostalgia fanatic's dream), because that's how wholesome Lisa lives her life.  But Debbie's lesbian secret is discovered  and her life spirals out of control as she attempts to tell Lisa before someone else can. During her journey, she relies on her new friends Tim and Emma and their invented religion, Bluedaism, to help build an identity separate from Lisa's.

I would say that Sparks is like a middle school LGBT version of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.  It's a novel about self-discovery, love, and friendship, and it all takes place in one night.  It's definitely entertaining in its approach, but I think tweens would appreciate it more for its approach to identity through Bluedaism (especially the bits about being Blueish and patting Bluedha) than the LGBT factor.  While S.J. Adams' novel focuses on gay acceptance and redefining what is "normal", the focus is more on accepting your personal identity.  Not only does Debbie need to construct her own self, but Emma struggles to accept her weight, Tim struggles to reveal his true sexuality (straight) and characters are frequently forced into roles they don't fit.  There is religious commentary sprinkled throughout.  It's definitely not an attack on religion, but a discussion on how religion should compliment who you are, not force you to hide your identity.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Within my incredible soft spot for YA literature, I have an even softer spot for LGBT YA fiction.  The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Danforth's Morris Award winning debut novel, is now in my top LGBT reads.

It's the 90s (yes, that is also a huge factor in why I love this novel) and Cameron lives in the middle of nowhere Montana.  She realizes she has different feelings towards girls at a young age, but her discovery coincides with the tragic death of her parents.  She doesn't know what to make of her feelings until years later when she meets another lesbian on her swim team.  Lindsey takes on the task of getting Cameron up to speed on lesbian speak and activities (music, movies, pride festivities) even when she moves back home after their summer together.  Cameron continues to live in secret until she is betrayed by a friend and forced to attend a curing camp by her conservative born-again Christian aunt.  Cameron continues to struggle at the camp, both with her feelings about her sexuality and also her guilt over her parents' deaths. 

I'm generalizing here, but a good chunk of LGBT fiction that I've encountered primarily focuses on either a character's confusion over whether or not s/he is gay or the reaction of others to a character's intentional or unintentional outing.  Cameron Post features both of these concepts, but also focuses on the internal struggle Cameron faces as she tries to grapple with the idea that maybe her family and church are right; what she's feeling may in fact be wrong.  Also, while the curing camp that Cameron is forced to attend is obviously supposed to be viewed as an antagonizing force, because the workers are shown to struggle when faced with adversity, Cameron's experience there isn't so black and white. I like that Danforth's realistically explores how a teen facing such a program feels when they want to please their family despite being angry with them.

Some of the scenes are pretty sexual, and there's drug and alcohol use littered throughout, so I'd definitely limit recommending this title to older teens or mature readers.