11 Queer Romance + YA Comfort Reads I Revisit on Bad Days
Reading has always been one of my favorite activities. As a kid, I would curl up just about anywhere and read. There used to be books stashed all over our house: between the mattress and the box spring, underneath the radiator. Even though there was no shortage of books at my disposal, I always returned to my favorites. To this day, I can’t tell you how many times I read Matilda or The Princess Diaries. Now that I’m older, my TBR is always a mile long, so I don’t reread books as often as I did as a kid, but when I find myself needing comfort from the atrocities of being an adult, these are the books I usually turn to.
Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
I have read this book at least three times, if not more. Whenever I’m in a reading (or writing) slump, I return to this book. Safi masters both the art of tension and crafting a delicious slow burn romance. This is the book that taught me how utterly satisfying an enemies-to-lovers story can be. Sana is the epitome of the perfect cheerleader, and Rachel is the director with a chip on her shoulder. When they’re forced to work together, they realize that there’s always something else beneath the surface.
Once & Future by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy
I am not a fantasy reader, but this fantasy was so wonderful and so unbelievably queer. It’s a futuristic retelling of King Arthur, but there’s one notable difference: Young Arthur is now a teenage girl named Ari. And the wise wizard Merlin is a bumbling teenage boy. Throw in a capitalist corporation running the government, queer knights of the roundtable, and sizzling tension between Ari and Guinevere, and I was hooked.
Once Upon a Princess by Claire Lydon and Harper Bliss
This was the first sapphic romance I ever read, and it has always maintained a special place in my heart. I love the “secret royal falls in love with a commoner” trope, probably because I spent years of my life hoping I would marry a royal. When princess Olivia decides to escape her royal life in London for the quiet in Cornwall, she isn’t expecting to meet Rosie, a struggling cafe owner. Can their love overcome the challenge of duty?
Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins
I love an enemies-to-lovers romance, and this one is so much fun that it quickly became a favorite. Millie Quint is from Texas, and after her best friend (and ex-girlfriend?) Jude breaks her heart, she decides to take to the Scottish highlands to attend a boarding school that is going co-ed for the first time. She’s not expecting to be roommates with Flora, who is the literal princess of Scotland and a royal pain in the ass. Eventually, Millie finds herself in a situationship with Flora, but will it be different this time? Some things are worth fighting for.
Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash
In this graphic memoir, 15-year-old Maggie spends the summer as she always does, at Camp Bellflower for girls. But this summer is different. Not only does she find herself becoming an expert at the rifle range, but there’s an older female counselor named Erin who awakens something in Maggie that she’s not necessarily ready for.
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
It feels like a cliché to include this book, because literally everyone loves it. There’s a movie adaptation that is so perfect. I will say, I read this book aloud to my fiancée when we first started dating, and it made her fall in love with me. Make of that what you will.
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
This book is truly just a joy to read, and turned me into an instant Leah Johnson stan. It was the only book I read during lockdown — it took me months, but I did it. Liz Lighty needs $10,000 to pay for college, and instead of burdening her family with the responsibility, she decides to run for prom queen to win the scholarship that is exactly $10,000. The only thing is, she doesn’t expect to fall in love with her competition.
Fresh by Margot Wood
New Adult is a genre that is woefully underdeveloped, but this book perfectly straddles the line of Young Adult and New Adult. Elliot is a college freshman who thinks more about partying and hooking up than she does about her schoolwork. And hook up she does. Elliot is a pansexual queen, but her best relationship is the love/hate one she has with her RA Rose. (I told y’all, I love an enemies-to-lovers story!) This is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma and has a cool use of footnotes due to Elliot’s ADHD.
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
Look, I would die for the ladies of Bright Falls okay? But the first book in the series definitely holds the tightest grip on my heart. It’s probably because of how much I related to Claire, the bisexual single mom who has kept a tight lock on her heart. But then brooding sexy Delilah Green shows up and throws her life into a tailspin.
Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
I love the Creekwood kids, and after I read Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Leah was absolutely my favorite. Giving her her own book was a brilliant decision, and I devoured it pretty quickly. It’s senior year, and things between her super tight friend group are starting to change, which always happens senior year. Leah doesn’t know if things will ever be the same, especially after she realizes that her feelings for one of her best friends are starting to change.
She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick
This is a recent favorite that will absolutely be a book I return to because I loved it so much. Written by actual wives in a dual POV, Alex is a brash, chaotic flirt, and Molly is the exact opposite. When Alex agrees to help Molly land the girl of her dreams in an attempt to prove that she’s not selfish to her ex (which hopefully won’t be permanent), both girls get more than they bargained for.
What are the queer comfort reads you return to over and over?
Sapphic Yearning, Horror, and K-Pop Blend Perfectly in “Gorgeous Gruesome Faces”
If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s a book about pop stars. I’m not really a K-pop person, but as a person who loves pop stars, I find the whole world of K-pop fascinating from a behind-the-scenes aspect. If you throw in a dash of folklore and make it sapphic? That’s like gold. Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng checks those boxes — plus it has some seriously awesome horror elements.
Gorgeous Gruesome Faces is told from the perspective of Sunny, a teenage girl who was part of an American K-pop style group that formed on a K-drama. At her audition, Sunny recognizes Candie, a beautiful girl and performer, from her YouTube videos, which Sunny is obsessed with. Rounding out the group is Mina, who is also the catalyst for the action of the book. When we meet the girls, their group Sweet Cadence has broken up and their show has been canceled because of a scandal involving Sunny and Mina. Candie and Sunny go to check on Mina and find their friend in a bad place mentally and physically. To free herself of the pain she’s going through, Mina jumps off of a balcony to her death.
Mina’s death plunges Sunny into a deep depression — one so bad that Sunny asks her mother, an entertainment manager, if they can leave Los Angeles for Georgia, where she can escape the demons of her past. Or so she thinks. Even though she’s lost touch with Candie, Sunny is still obsessively watching her social media videos. So when she learns that not only is Candie in Georgia but that she’s going to be part of a new singing group, Sunny decides to audition for the group, even though she has given up pop stardom. With Candie back in her life, Sunny can finally confront what happened to Mina and make her peace with it. The story is told in two timelines: Then and Now, but they’re not used evenly. It’s more about what moment fits the story.
Sunny is desperately in love with Candie. It’s clear from the way she talks about the way she obsessively watches her videos before they end up being groupmates in Sweet Cadence. I totally get why Sunny is attracted to her: Candie is enigmatic, and you can’t help but be drawn to her. Even as a reader, I wanted Candie to notice me. Because of her love for Candie, Sunny will subject herself to the horrors of the maiden and everything that entails to save her. Sunny will endure horrors to make sure Candie survives. The trials and tribulations she is willing to go through are a testament to the intense love she has for Candie.
We know there is something between them based on how they act around each other, but for so long Candie is so focused on other things that you have to wonder if she still has feelings for Sunny. But they do get their opportunity to reunite, and it’s so so good.
I loved the way K-pop superstardom is used as a plot device in this story. We have all heard about how rigorous and borderline abusive these boot camp-style training sessions can be, and that plays right out on the page. We are with Sunny and the other girls as they practice and practice and drill themselves to be perfect. It never feels over the top or fake. Since I’m big on 90s pop stars, which is always what K-pop feels like, I found myself thinking that this is exactly what the audition process would feel like. Is it a little horrifying? Of course. But in the context of this story, it’s also wholly necessary.
The K-pop dreams are intricately tied to Asian folklore in the story. I love seeing Cheng finding ways to make a connection between these different cultural elements in a really fresh way. Candie is involved in a ritualistic cult that descends from an ancient maiden who was put up on a pedestal for her beauty and desirability. If that doesn’t feel like an analogy for modern day pop starlets, I don’t know what would. It may feel too easy, but I don’t think so. There are still too many people who haven’t been able to draw those parallels in real life to say that the analogy feels like low-hanging fruit or too on the nose.
Female pop singers are held to impossibly high beauty standards, and as a result, the women who make up their fanbase hold themselves up to impossible beauty standards. K-pop singers are branded and commodified even more than American pop singers are if you can believe it. Female K-pop stars are sold as the epitome of the performance of femininity, defined by the delicate features of the members, who are often posing in a line wearing typically feminine clothing. They sing in largely higher registers that are exclusive to their style of music. But it’s all performance, and you have to assume they’re incredibly different in reality.
The folklore of the maiden who has given all of herself to those she serves but now inhabits other’s bodies to take back what’s hers feels almost too perfect, but I honestly love it. Even though she’s not Korean, I immediately thought of Britney Spears and how she’s broken herself into pieces to serve people who only want to take things from her. Sunny, Candie, and the other girls trying out for the group are being infused with pieces of the maiden, who is hellbent on her own form of revenge. But in reality, she only wants to put the broken pieces of herself back together. The thing is, she has to destroy everything to do so.
I’ve never really been a horror girlie, but in recent months, I’ve found myself intrigued by YA books that have a horror element. The horror elements of Gorgeous Gruesome Faces aren’t there for shock value, and I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. Cheng does a great job of blending Asian folklore and horror in ways that feel totally natural, but at the same time utterly unsettling. The first time we see the body horror is right at the beginning when Sunny and Candie go to Mina. The maiden is ravaging her body, distorting her face and making her almost unrecognizable to her friends. There are thriller elements to the story too, especially in the pacing and the balance between the Then and Now moments. By the end, I was gripping the book.
From what I can tell, there is supposed to be another book that follows this one, and I am very here for it, as the end of Gorgeous Gruesome Faces has the perfect open ending that lends to a sequel. If you’re looking for something that’s twisty, dark and beautiful, this is the book for you.
Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng is out now.
YA Favorite Jennifer Dugan’s Queer Thriller Debut Is a Lesson in Trauma
I’m not usually one for thrillers or slasher stories, but when I found out Jennifer Dugan was coming out with a queer YA with both of those themes, I put aside my squeamish feelings to read The Last Girls Standing. The story definitely delivered on those themes — but not in the way you might expect.
Sloan and Cherry are the sole survivors of a mass murder at a summer camp where they were set to be counselors. Before the campers even showed up, a man in a crudely carved fox mask went on a murderous rampage, and somehow, these two girls survived.
Like I said, slasher movies aren’t usually my vibe, but I found myself seriously missing the slasher element of The Last Girls Standing. The story picks up after the murders, and so we only get them in flashbacks. I think throwing us into the action as the murders were happening would have given the story a sense of urgency it lacks. The flashbacks are some of the most interesting parts of the book, and I found myself craving to know more about how the murders happened: the smell of the blood, the sound of the screams in the woods, the way Sloan’s own breath echoed in her ears while she waited to die.
Even though the book has thriller vibes, it’s really much more about trauma and how surviving something traumatic can affect the rest of your life. In that sense, it gave me big Yellowjackets vibes. It’s less about what happened and more about the results.
Sloan is suffering from some severe PTSD and has blocked out pretty much all memories of the night she was almost murdered. Her mother has forced her into therapy, and it’s not really working at first, mainly because of how resistant Sloan is to even trying. Her mom just wants her to be “normal” again, and while we don’t get to know much about Sloan before the massacre, I wonder if she was ever actually their definition of normal. Of course, we all know that living through a traumatic event fundamentally changes you, but given the way she reacts to the trauma, it makes me think there is something much deeper at play here.
Cherry on the other hand, is almost too okay after what happened. She is incredibly rational about everything. Cherry is the stabilizing force for the very fragile Sloan. Her memories are fully intact, and as a result, she is the one Sloan relies on to remind her what happened. If it ever feels like a burden, Cherry never gives an indication she feels that way — in fact, she relishes that she’s the one Sloan has to depend on. And she’s always there to catch Sloan when she falls. She rescues her from therapy, from her family, from the voices in her own head. It is a lot of pressure for a teenage girl, and I would have liked to see a little more about how Cherry feels being the strong one. There’s so much focus on Sloan and her fragility; I think there should have been a little bit more about Cherry and the potential she had to fall apart herself.
The relationship between Sloan and Cherry can best be described as codependent, but of course it is! If they’re the only two people to survive a massacre, what else could you possibly expect? If the murders hadn’t happened, they likely would have had a very sweet fleeting summer romance. But then they become the last girls standing, and everything changes. Cherry climbs into Sloan’s window every night so they can sleep curled up together. They have a shorthand with each other, because no one will ever know what it’s like to be survivors. I think Dugan did a good job balancing the headiness of being infatuated with your first girlfriend and the extreme trauma of surviving.
Cherry is the holder of the memories of that night, so it also doesn’t surprise me that Sloan clings to her the way she does. Sloan is desperate to know what exactly happened to them that night, and Cherry is the only one with any sort of clear idea. It feels like the root of their codependency starts with that more than even how much they liked each other before the massacre. Sloan needs Cherry to fill in the blanks, and because she is on such a quest to figure it all out, she needs to have unlimited access to her. At the same time, Cherry becomes a refuge when it all becomes too much.
The girls find out that the person who committed the murders was a part of a doomsday cult, and Sloan becomes obsessed with knowing everything she can to try and recover her memories and begin to make sense of what happened to her. As a reader, I felt like there was too much time spent on the cult and their beliefs and rituals, but from a storytelling point of view, I understand the necessity of it. Sloan is so desperate to put together all the pieces of her life and what happened that night that she falls head first into the rabbit hole of this group to make sense of it all. After a while, it’s hard to tell if it’s a quest for knowledge or something else. She becomes so obsessed with the group that it makes her paranoid and skittish.
Her obsession with the cult puts an understandable strain on her relationship with Cherry. Cherry is just as desperate to put the past behind them as Sloan is to keep digging it up. There’s a constant push-pull between the two of them as Sloan descends deeper into the madness of the world of the cult and Cherry fights harder to pull her out of it.
Family and parents are another big theme in The Last Girls Standing. Sloan was adopted at the age of four and has vague memories of her birth parents. Those memories and that connection make for a big part of the story as she tries to parse out which memories are real and which ones may be in her imagination. Her adoptive mother is obsessed with wellness and probably doesn’t believe in mental illness, which is why she pushes Sloan so hard to get back to normal. In reality, her desire to have Sloan “fixed” pushes the girl further into the well of desperation. Cherry is very close to her mom, and her dad died several years before the start of the story. Her dad is a figure that looms over the girls and Sloan’s mind as her PTSD gets worse. It’s clear Cherry still has some unresolved trauma from his death that is only made more complicated by Sloan’s constant probing.
Sloan believes there could be some sort of connection between her birth parents, Cherry’s dad and the cult, and trying to put those pieces together pushes her further and further to the edge of stability. Her need to prove something overtakes her and puts her into some truly terrifying situations, including a showdown with the murderer.
It’s hard to write about certain parts of The Last Girls Standing without spoiling it too much. The thriller element of the story really picks up in the last two chapters of the book. I was so tired and needed to put the book down, but I couldn’t sleep until I finished it. I will say, the ending is equal parts unexpected and unsurprising. There is only one way the story can end, and while I kind of saw it coming, it didn’t happen quite the way I thought it would.
Leah Johnson’s Middle Grade Debut Will Take You Right Back to Seventh Grade
Let me just say: I will read anything by Leah Johnson. If she rewrote the phone book, I would get one. Her writing is so voicey, and her characters jump off the page. Her debut YA, You Should See Me In A Crown (a book I loved so much my phone’s auto-suggest recognizes it) had me hooked, and her middle grade debut, Ellie Engle Saves Herself has sealed the deal.
Ellie Engle has a lot on her plate: She’s getting ready to start middle school, and she’s pretty sure she likes her best friend Abby as more than a best friend. On the night before the first day of seventh grade, Ellie spends the night at Abby’s house because her mom is working late again. The girls wake up with a start; an earthquake has rocked their small Indiana town. An earthquake in Indiana is weird enough, but suddenly Ellie feels different. She can hear every single noise and conversation in the cafeteria, is hyperaware of her surroundings, and she definitely brought her Betta fish Burt back from the dead. What is going on?
The only thing Ellie can do is consult her beloved comic book collection. Surely, they would have the answer. And they do: Ellie’s a necromancer; she can bring things back to life. Her powers must have come during the earthquake. So now, Ellie has to figure out how to navigate seventh grade, being in love with her best friend, AND super powers? How much can one girl handle?
As previously stated, Leah Johnson is a master of voice. Ellie jumps off the page from the first sentence — you feel like you’ve known her for her entire life after only reading a page. After about 20 pages, I declared I would die for Ellie Engle and also ruin the life of anyone who hurt her. Call it my momma bear instinct, but I would protect this little necromancer with my life. Johnson imbues Ellie with so much character that you feel an instant connection. This book kicked me square back to the 1998-’99 school year and navigating the absolute hell that is seventh grade. I don’t think we talk enough about how hard that particular year is. For me, it was the middle of three of the worst years of my life. So much changes when you’re in seventh grade, especially socially.
Ellie has always been very secure in her place as the quiet part of the dynamic duo that is her and Abby. She understands that every Batman needs their Robin, and while Abby dreams of “making her mark” and being just like her favorite celebrity Willa Moon, Ellie wants to keep her small world just the way it is. Clearly, having super powers blows up that plan, but she cannot anticipate how much being in middle school was going to blow up her world anyway. Abby is determined to become a cheerleader, and in doing so becomes closer to Marley Keilor, the most popular girl in their grade. Ellie is jealous of Abby and Marley’s friendship for a myriad of reasons, but mainly because she is no longer the center of Abby’s orbit. And when it becomes clear that Ellie’s powers are here to stay, it causes even more friction between the girls, to the point where Abby tells Ellie that maybe she doesn’t want to be friends with her anymore. Understandably, Ellie is shattered. It’s so much more than losing your best friend, which is huge when you’re 12. But because Abby is also the first girl Ellie has ever had a crush on, the loss has a profound effect.
Making new friends is hard, especially in middle school. Johnson gives Ellie the opportunity to find new friends in a very organic way, in the unlikeliest of places. Breonna, a quiet girl who is just as studious and nerdy as Ellie, becomes a friend naturally through their shared interests. Bree becomes a support for Ellie as her friendship with Abby starts to deteriorate, providing Ellie with a soft place to land and the opportunity to feel seen fully. Her other new friend Sammy, is an unlikely ally. He is the boy all the girls (except Ellie) have a crush on. Abby and Marley literally swoon whenever Sammy is near them, which means he’s Ellie’s sworn nemesis. Things change for them during a group project when Sammy (who it turns out, hates the attention he gets from the girls) asks Ellie and Bree if they want to work with him. As Ellie gets to know him, she discovers they have a lot more in common than she could have previously imagined.
The relationship between Ellie and the two primary adults in her life is also something that I really enjoyed. Johnson always does such a great job in making sure her characters have a strong adult presence in their lives to guide them, and Ellie Engle is no exception. Ellie’s parents are divorced, and her mom has to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. It puts a strain on their relationship, and their financial situation is one of the driving forces behind Ellie trying to learn to harness her powers. After she brings radishes in the school garden back to life, she realizes it’s a way to feed her family so her mom doesn’t have to worry so much about grocery costs. When her powers are revealed, her mom loses work, which only makes Ellie feel worse. Ellie deals with anxiety, and she spends a lot of time trying to shield her mom from her fears because of the burdens her mom has to carry. Eventually, Ellie realizes that her mom is always going to be a safe space for her, especially when things get hard. Johnson has spoken very openly about being raised by a single mother, and you can tell by the way she writes the scenes between Ellie and her mom that it comes from a deeply personal place.
Ellie finds a kinship in Mr. Walker, the elderly man who runs the neighborhood bakery. He was best friends with her beloved grandfather, Poppy and now acts as a surrogate grandfather. Even though Ellie has known him her whole life, there’s so much she doesn’t know. When she discovers he has the same powers she does, it allows them to get to know each other better. I really love grandparent relationships, so this was such a heartwarming relationship to watch develop. Mr. Walker isn’t only the closest thing Ellie has to a grandparent, he’s also the only person who can help her figure out her powers. There’s still a lot about his own he doesn’t know, and watching them learn together is really sweet.
When Ellie and her mom are shunned by the whole town, Sammy and Bree stand up for Ellie, while Abby looks on but stays silent. Eventually, she does come to her senses, and I commend Ellie for being able to put boundaries on their relationship. She’s acknowledging the harm that Abby’s actions have done, and I know I would not have been able to do that at 12. Hell, I still can’t always do that at 37.
Ellie Engle Saves Herself isn’t solely for children. They are, of course, the target audience, but if you’ve ever found yourself on a journey of self understanding, you will see yourself in Ellie. Most importantly, this story gives Black girls (and women) someone who looks like them and is the hero of her own story, when so often we’re not allowed to be. As Leah Johnson points out in the author’s note, “no one can take away our right to exist without fear or shame.” And that’s the power of storytelling.
Hayley Kiyoko’s Debut YA Novel Tells Queer Love Story Set in 2006
I first learned about Hayley Kiyoko in 2018 after seeing her perform her song “Curious” with Taylor Swift at Taylor’s Boston concert. After watching that clip an inordinate amount of times, I searched YouTube for more of her music videos. That was the first time I saw the music video for “Girls Like Girls.” The music video told a story of two girls falling in love with each other, and even though I was in my thirties at the time, I had never seen a music video like that before. So when I found out that the story from the video was being turned into a book, I was intrigued. And then when I found out that Hayley Kiyoko herself would be writing it, I was excited. Kiyoko is such a good storyteller; all of her music videos are mini movies. Girls Like Girls the novel was an enjoyable read.
Girls Like Girls tells the story of Coley, a girl who is forced to move to a small town in Oregon with her estranged father after the death of her mother. Not long after arriving, she meets Sonya and her group of friends. From the minute their eyes meet, they’re drawn to each other. The story takes place in the summer of 2006, which is a very specific time to use. The first time we read about Sonya is through a LiveJournal post and subsequent conversation she has with her friend group about what their summer plans are going to be. I appreciated the establishing of a specific period of time in the book, because it will change how you read the characters and story. We were all a little more innocent in 2006; social media was a very different landscape and we weren’t constantly plugged in all day (hell, I still had a flip phone that summer!).
I don’t really know much about the decision to set the story in 2006, but I do like the commitment to being as accurate as possible. After Coley hangs out with Sonya and her friends for the first time (which is kind of a disaster), Sonya writes her AIM screen name and phone number on Coley’s arm. AIM messenger was such a huge part of early aughts culture, and Kiyoko’s choice to include what might seem like a small detail is actually quite a big deal. I’m sure there are people out there who have NO IDEA what she’s even talking about, which is mind boggling to me, but I’m a Millennial in my late 30s, and I have to remember that there is a whole generation of adults who missed out on this particular pop culture moment. Another thing that gets a lot of facetime in the story is LiveJournal. Though the story is told mostly from Coley’s point of view, we get to learn more about Sonya through her LJ posts, some public, some private. I’ve read other books that are supposed to be set in a specific time and then don’t use enough cultural markers to make it feel necessary, and I’m glad that Kiyoko didn’t just choose a specific time period and then not follow through with it.
There is some heavy subject matter in this book. If you’ve seen the music video, you know that the relationship between the girls isn’t necessarily sunshine and rainbows. Coley is much more aware of her sexuality, and Sonya has to catch up. There’s a lot of internal homophobia on her part and external homophobia between her friends and family. If you’re looking for a fluffy romance, you’re not going to find it here. The relationship between the girls is a constant push/pull of emotions that feel right, even though they’re painful to sit through. How many times have we seen this story play out before? Surprisingly, that doesn’t make it boring or less interesting. It’s still incredibly painful to watch these two girls go through a traumatic relationship. To watch them break each other’s hearts time and time again. I really felt the sense of ache and longing each of them possessed.
But this isn’t just a story about the pain of loving someone who isn’t ready to love you back. This is also a story of loving yourself enough to fight. Coley has to learn how to rebuild herself after her mother’s death. She needs to remember that she is worthy of being loved, and being loved fully and out loud. When she gets a job at a local restaurant, it gives her the freedom to remove herself from Sonya’s friend group and find her own people. It’s through those friends that she remembers that she is worthy of love, and if Sonya isn’t that person, then she has to fully move on.
Sonya has to learn to fight back against the crush of what other people think. She is so worried that everyone will abandon her, and that may very well be true. But she will never be able to be truly happy if she is hiding a part of who she is. That’s the thing, Sonya is a smart girl. She knows that Trenton is a total piece of shit, but she doesn’t distance herself from him because she’s known him forever and he can occasionally be a good guy. She doesn’t try to do anything when her friends embarrass Coley. And she is so wrapped up in her own feelings that she can’t see how her inability to fight for what she wants only leads to more hurt feelings. It takes Coley being physically hurt by Trenton for Sonya to finally get the courage to do what she’s wanted to do the whole time. The characters are teenage girls, so their decision making skills are seriously lacking, but sometimes I couldn’t help but get frustrated. I’m just glad that eventually, she listens to her heart and says fuck you to expectations.
One of my biggest complaints is that I want to know more about the relationship Coley had with her mother. It is established that she had severe depression and died by suicide, something that very obviously and understandably affects Coley to her core. Since her mother was a single parent, they were incredibly close. While I do understand the choice for Coley to not want to reveal too many details to her new friends and even her dad, some moments of quiet reflection would have been nice. Otherwise, Kiyoko should have found a different reason to force Coley to move in with her dad. Killing off the mom felt more like a plot device instead of a plot point.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed the development of Coley’s relationship with her father Curtis. She only refers to him by his first name, which makes a lot of sense. They haven’t had any interaction since she was three years old — they are effectively strangers. Coley’s whole life has changed, and their relationship isn’t easily won, which I appreciate. It’s hard for a middle aged man to suddenly find himself raising a teenage girl, he is absolutely going to fuck that up more often than not. Even a seasoned parent fucks that relationship up most of the time. Watching them stumble through provides a heartwarming space in a story that deals with some really deep subject matter.
The only part of Girls Like Girls that truly bothered me was the ending. I get what Kiyoko was going for, because the ending of the book and the music video are pretty much identical. But while it works when you’re telling the story in a visual medium, it doesn’t work as well in written form. There are ways to more effectively leave the story open ended, or imply that the ending of this story is really the beginning of a new one. It felt abrupt, especially for a book that is over 300 pages. A few extra sentences just to close the thought would have been enough.
If you’re looking for a YA book that reinvents the wheel, Girls Like Girls probably won’t be the book for you. But it is a solid debut novel from someone who isn’t an author, and if I’m being honest, it’s one of the better written celebrity fiction novels that I’ve read (and I’ve read Lauren Conrad’s YA series). It definitely reads like a celebrity debut, the pacing is a little off and the dialogue is a bit on the trite side, but it didn’t ruin my reading experience. Hayley Kiyoko had a tough job expanding a five minute music video into a novel that is over 300 pages. I do think it could have been shorter to give her a little less need for long exposition. But all in all, I really did enjoy reading it a lot.
Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko comes out tomorrow, May 30.
In Lesbian YA Debut, Teen Girls Find Love in the Midst of an Asteroid Barreling Toward Earth
Author’s Note: This book and review contain talk of suicide and suicidal ideation.
The first time we meet Avery Byrne, the main character of Jen St. Jude’s YA debut If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come, she is staring at an icy river contemplating drowning herself in it. It’s the morning of her 19th birthday, and she is so depressed that this feels like the only solution. In the river, she sees the reflection of her Aunt Devin, her mother’s sister she never met. Devin died the same way on Avery’s birthday, so Avery thinks it’s her destiny to go the same way. She changes her mind, and on her walk back to her dorm room, she gets a call from her best friend Cass. There’s an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, and they likely only have nine days before impact. Cass asks Avery to meet her in Boston, and even though their relationship is strained, Avery agrees.
Unfortunately, getting to Boston isn’t going to be as easy as Avery hopes. As soon as the news was released, the whole country fell into disarray. Major cities like Boston and New York, where Cass is traveling from, are literally on fire, with violence basically shutting them down. But Avery’s roommate Aisha, who found one of Avery’s suicide notes, is trying to get to Boston so she can fly home to Nigeria. As a way to get her to keep the secret, Avery agrees to help Aisha get to Boston. They find themselves traveling with Avery’s former English professor, Dr. Talley, and his dog Scout. It isn’t an easy trip; they’re riding on top of vans in the bitter cold and trudging through the freezing snow. When they get to Boston, they find buildings burned to a crisp, people bloodied and bruised in the street, and cars looted and abandoned. Thankfully, they find Cass at South Station and make the decision to trek to the girls’ hometown of Kilkenny, New Hampshire.
St. Jude tells the story in two timelines: counting down from nine days to the impact of the asteroid, and a series of flashbacks that fill in all the blanks about Avery and her relationships with her family and Cass. She was an awkward kid who was close to her family. Her brother Peter is one of her best friends growing up, and even though he now has a wife and son, they’re still incredibly close. She loves her parents, even if they don’t always understand each other, and she seems to really love her hometown, even though she went away for college.
Avery’s family moved to Kilkenny from Kilkenny, Ireland when Avery was a baby and her older brother Peter a toddler. After her aunt’s death, her mother couldn’t stay in Ireland. We learn that Avery and Cass met in middle school and quickly became inseparable. Their friendship is that kind of intense relationship you have with your best friend when you’re a teen (at least I did). Cass is out as a lesbian from a young age, while Avery thinks of herself as nothing more than a true ally. Of course, that’s not true at all, and even though it takes Avery a while to figure it out, it’s clear that she and Cass are hopelessly in love with each other.
Teenage love, especially first love (even more so between best friends) is so powerful. St. Jude captures the complexities of how that plays out for them brilliantly. Cass is always very secure in herself in ways Avery clearly isn’t. Of course that causes friction for them, but it is never more clear than when it comes to their sexuality. Because Avery struggles so much to own her identity as a lesbian, she cannot fully articulate or understand the strong pull she has to Cass in the flashback timeline. We learn that she tried to kiss Cass when she visited her at college in New York, and it only led to them having a massive fight. There are parts of herself that are hard for Avery to share with Cass because of who she is as a person. I do wish Cass could be a little more understanding of those struggles, but I had to remind myself they’re teenagers. The power of their relationship is a strong undercurrent for the whole story.
The biggest theme in If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come is mental health. (There’s an author’s note on the subject matter and resources in the back.) Avery is very open with the audience about the depression she deals with, but it takes most of the book before she begins to reveal her situation to the other characters in the story. I understand why though — it’s hard to be honest about your mental health with the people closest to you. This feels even more true when you’re talking about a teenager. Even though teens have much more understanding around mental health now, that doesn’t always make it easier to be honest with your family or even your close friends. And for Avery, there’s so much more to that. Her religious upbringing and evolving relationship to Catholicism make it even harder for her to tell the truth.
Over the course of the book, she does begin to let people be more aware of her mental health and how it has affected her, especially in the months leading to the asteroid strike. Only Aisha knows of her plans to die for most of the story. There is a great conversation she has with Dr. Talley in his house that stuck with me. Avery, for the first time, really allows herself to be vulnerable about how much she was struggling during the semester. She tells Dr. Talley that she was very clearly deep in the throes of her depression and would have hoped that he would reach out and offer help. He tells her it wasn’t his job to do so because she is now an adult (which I wholeheartedly disagree with! 19 isn’t an adult, no matter what society believes) and that if she needed help, she needed to make her needs more clear. I do agree that sometimes, even though we think people should see our depression and ask without us having to say anything, we do have to ask someone to see us struggling.
For her entire life, she’s been trying to outrun the ghost of her dead aunt Devin. On the day of Avery’s birth, Devin died by suicide, which put a understandable cloud over her birth. Not only that, but Avery bears a striking resemblance to Devin with her red hair and blue eyes. It’s almost too much for her mother to bear, especially when she begins to recognize more similarities between the two. Even though Mrs. Byrne doesn’t explicitly state it in the flashbacks, it’s clear she sees the way depression affects Avery just like it affected her sister. As much as she tried to put that past behind them, it lives in every fiber of Avery’s being. Over the course of the book, Avery begins to reconcile with the connection between herself and her aunt Devin. As the days until the asteroid tick down, Avery’s mom is finally willing to discuss her sister with Avery, allowing the girl to finally find some peace with their connection.
Avery’s religion and her changing relationship to her Catholicism is another big part of who she is. I cannot speak fully to this struggle because I grew up without religion in my house. But St. Jude captures the tenuous relationship Avery has to her upbringing masterfully. For so much of her life, Avery is trying to be the good Catholic daughter her mother expects her to be. She throws herself into volunteering and becoming a leader at church. It’s not purely out of duty, as you get to know her, it’s easy to assume that some of that push is to mask both her depression and potential sexuality. There is a flashback scene of Avery and Cass at her church summer camp that shows one of the first fissures in Avery’s beliefs. During a campfire reflection circle, one of the campers indirectly outs Cass as a lesbian and makes truly hurtful and hateful comments about it. This is someone Cass had trusted over the time at camp, which hurt, but when Avery doesn’t stick up for her, it hurts so much more. At the time, Avery insists she’s an ally, but that night, the girls share their first kiss.
Despite the fact that the whole time the story is unfolding the characters are waiting for an asteroid to obliterate Earth, the overall tone of the book is hope. Avery realizes she can live on her own terms even if she only has a few days left to do it. Through that, she begins to accept the parts of herself that she deems hard to love or accept. She stands fully in being gay, and while some people may not be okay with it, the people who love her will always have her back. Her depression doesn’t have to rule her life, and she doesn’t have to pretend it doesn’t exist — it’s a huge part of who she is. By the end, she can accept her unknown fate knowing that she lived a life worth living. The title may be If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come but “tomorrow” can be a lot of different things.
If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude is out now.
Autistic Teen Girl Takes On the Rich and Powerful in This Queer YA Thriller
“A little party never killed nobody” is the tagline for This Is The Way The World Ends by Jen Wilde, and for good reason.
Waverly is an autistic scholarship kid from Queens at New York City’s Webber Academy. The school gives me big Gossip Girl vibes; it’s full of spoiled rich kids who have rich and powerful parents and closets full of designer clothes. This isn’t Waverly’s world at all — that is until her friend Caroline gives Waverly her invitation to the school’s annual masquerade ball. And not just her invitation but also her permission to masquerade as Caroline for the night, complete with a Christian Siriano gown. It’s not that Waverly wants to know how the other half lives; it’s that she needs to see Ashley Webber, the headmaster’s daughter, and Waverly’s ex who just disappeared one day. But Waverly is going to get more than she bargained for…
Waverly has always moved through Webber Academy differently, because she’s not rich. Her parents work at the school as a custodian and a cafeteria worker. And her mother has chronic pain and illness, which means most of their money goes to her care. While Caroline lives in a doorman building, Waverly’s family shares a one-bedroom apartment, and she sleeps on a pullout couch so her mom can sleep more comfortably in a bed. Her main access to her rich peers doesn’t come from the halls of the school — she tutors many of them for cash, even though she is also struggling in some classes. This affords her the ability to observe them while not falling prey to the lifestyles they live. It also helps that she has two best friends, Pari and Frank, to keep her grounded. Pari is wealthy but down to earth, while Frank is also a scholarship kid like Waverly.
The morning of the party, the school community is rocked when they find out that Caroline’s dad is in the hospital. Caroline is, of course, missing in action, and Waverly thinks her chances of seeing Ash again are gone. But then she gets a text from Caroline encouraging her to attend the party anyway. So now Waverly has to navigate people thinking they’re offering “Caroline” condolences while also trying to get Ash’s attention and not letting people realize she doesn’t belong there. Which is hard when Caroline’s boyfriend won’t let her out of his sight and Caroline’s friends are always nearby.
In her search for Pari, Waverly stumbles upon a secret underground in the industrial building owned by the Webber family where the party is being held. She finds Dean Webber and all of the rich white dads of his students sequestered in a private room. These men are senators, CEOS, etc. Waverly is about to find out what happens when you get a group of powerful men in a room together.
I have always thought that the U.S. is heading for a class war. If you understand that the root of most of the problems in this country begin and end with capitalism, you can understand where my thinking comes from. We’re tumbling headfirst into a recession. Inflation is limiting our abilities to live. Jobs are becoming harder to find as companies ramp up mass layoffs to maintain the CEOs’ standards of living. Any ability we may have had to “get ahead” during the pandemic is long gone, and we’re all seeing how that is playing out for us. As the wealth gap and equity gap between the one percent and the rest of us continues to widen, it is only a matter of time. Honestly, it’s already happening in small ways, but as those with all the money continue to do what they do, it’s going to be inevitable.
This Is The Way The World Ends aptly plays on the belief that the rich will do whatever it takes to maintain their status, even as the world is ending. There’s so much I want to say about the book, but I can’t give away too much of the plot. Let me just say that Dean Webber and the men he associates with will stop at nothing to maintain their power and way of life. It’s clear that Wilde based these characters off men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who will stop at nothing to keep their resources for themselves, even though they know how much good they could do by spreading the wealth. They don’t care, because that’s not how capitalism works. It’s the inequity that keeps the world turning. Waverly and her friends learn the hard way what these men are capable of to devastating effect.
Wilde does a good job of balancing their commentary on the wealthy without going too far overboard. Because it’s a topic that is so current, there’s space for the story to become overwhelmed by commentary. They take a very clear stance, but the characters never turn preachy or beat you over the head with a message. There’s room for the reader to come to their own conclusions about the characters and how they fit into the world they’ve created. Do I ever sympathize with the rich white guys? Absolutely fucking not. But was I allowed to come to that conclusion on my own? Yes. And that’s the most important thing.
Creating a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time is impressive, and Wilde certainly did that with This Is How The World Ends. Pacing is incredibly important with thrillers, and while Wilde’s story had me holding my breath, it still had room to breathe. I couldn’t put it down, because I was desperate to know what was going to happen next. Even the minor characters felt like fleshed-out individuals. Waverly as a main character is our way into the story, but then it feels like we’re all on the same journey with each other. She’s just as much of an observer in this world as we are as readers. As she’s making discoveries, we’re making them alongside her. The story wouldn’t hold the same weight if it was coming from a character who is wholly immersed in that world. Rich girl Caroline couldn’t tell this story; she simply doesn’t have the same omniscient point of view. She’s too close to the center of the action. Watching Waverly make discoveries is what makes you keep reading. Because you may think you’ve figured something out, but you have to wait and see if you’re right.
This Is The Way The World Ends works best because it’s a YA story. An idealistic teen drives the story in a way no adult would ever be able to. She still has a strong moral compass that hasn’t been compromised by the reality of adulthood. So she can observe the world around her with more objectivity, but also a clearer set of eyes. It’s a fun ride to take, partially because it doesn’t seem like an inconceivable predicament to find ourselves in. This is Jen Wilde’s first thriller, but I hope not her last.
This Is The Way The World Ends by Jen Wilde comes out tomorrow, May 9.
This YA Book Is a Great Queer Second-Chance Romance
What would you do if the one person you loved the most was the one person you cannot remember?
That is the premise that runs through Alyson Derrick’s debut YA novel Forget Me Not. It tells the story of Stevie, an Asian American girl who just graduated from high school in rural Pennsylvania. She has secretly been dating her girlfriend Nora for two years, and they have plans to run away together to California. But then Stevie has a horrible fall that erases the last two years from her memory…
When we meet Stevie at the beginning of the book, she’s living a secret life. Her very Catholic mom and super conservative dad would absolutely not be okay with the fact that she likes girls. So she’s been hiding her two-year relationship to the point where she won’t even speak to Nora on the phone. Any and all mementos shared between the two of them are hidden in a box in a vent, where she knows her parents would never find them. Her entire room has been scrubbed of any and all remnants of the girl she once was; if she starts erasing herself, then it will be easier for everyone when she’s gone.
Stevie and Nora can only meet in secret on the vast farm Nora lives on, or on occasional trips to Pittsburgh where they can be more open about their relationship. Stevie works at a coffee shop and often claims to be working more hours to save up to go to community college. In reality, she’s spending time with Nora. (I do have to say, I love secret romances!)
For the vast majority of the book, Stevie is on a quest to figure out who she was at the time of her accident, and how that version of herself got so far away from the way she remembers herself being. I can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up and feel three years younger than you actually are, but Derrick viscerally gives the reader a glimpse into what it might be like.
The hospital scenes are some of the best — but also the hardest to read. When Stevie finally wakes from her medically induced coma, she is panicked and scared. That fear is palpable even through the page as she tries to make sense of everything she’s just been told. Derrick grips your heartstrings and doesn’t let up for what feels like a long time, but then the grip starts to release as Stevie starts to settle into her new normal.
Not only does Stevie have to work to repair relationships, but she has to relearn how to live her life. To try and get some semblance of her life back, she goes back to her job at the coffee shop. Armed with cheat sheets, she realizes that she’s forgotten it all, and even the cheat sheets can’t help. She is heartbroken, and more importantly, embarrassed that she can’t even remember how to do her job. There is great skill in writing the emotional rollercoaster she goes on in those pages, and Derrick nails it.
After her accident, Stevie works to reconnect with her friends Savannah and Rory. The girls have grown apart and Savannah and Rory are eager to take advantage of Stevie’s accident to get their friend back. The thing is though, there’s a reason that they grew apart in the first place. High school friendships are hard; sometimes we fight a little harder to hold on to friendships because they know us and have been there for us when we needed them. But sometimes, we need to let those friendships go because they no longer serve us in a way we need.
In an attempt to shape Stevie more into the friend they wish she was, the girls tell her that she has a crush on Ryan, a boy who works as a waiter at the place they eat frequently. They clearly want her to be interested in a boy like they are, and since she’s eager to fit in with them again, she goes along with it. Ryan is a nice enough guy, and Stevie does make an effort to like him in the way that her friends want her to. But she’s still a tiny queer, even though she doesn’t know it, and the relationship is only going to go but so far. After she begins to realize her feelings for Nora, she goes to Ryan and kisses him to see if she feels anything, but surprise surprise, she doesn’t. As a result, they become very good friends.
On the other hand, the forced relationship with Ryan decimates her friendship with Savannah and Rory. One of the hardest parts of growing apart from your friends is realizing they are no longer the person you remember them being. That’s exactly what happens in this book. Despite making a real effort to reconnect with her friends, she realizes that they aren’t the same people they used to be, and their beliefs no longer align with hers. It’s devastating and infuriating, but it’s an important lesson for Stevie to learn. I unfortunately related to this plot point the most, and I hurt for Stevie because it’s a shitty lesson to have to learn.
Second chance romance isn’t a trope I find myself gravitating towards, but in Forget Me Not, I loved it so much. When Stevie’s in the hospital, the only thing she knows about Nora is that for some reason, she was at Nora’s family’s farm and that Nora saved her. But none of it makes sense because why in the world would she have been at the Martin family farm? Meanwhile, Nora has to look at Stevie, knowing the love of her life has no idea who she is. I can’t imagine how painful that has to be, especially for a teenage girl. Nora has an incredibly tense relationship with her mother, and it really seems like Stevie is all she has.
The question might be: Why doesn’t Nora just tell Stevie about their relationship? How would you feel if you had woken up one day in a hospital and then been told you were in a medically induced coma? And to top it all off, you think you’re only 15, but everyone’s telling you that you’re actually 18 and had recently graduated high school? There’s no way Stevie could have also handled finding out about a secret girlfriend. So Nora knows that the only thing she can do is be patient — hopefully over time, Stevie’s memories will return and they can get back to their plan.
I do have to say that as a reader, it was really enjoyable to read Stevie fall in love with Nora again. You can see they naturally gravitate toward each other but also the pain Nora feels knowing she isn’t telling Stevie the whole story. Derrick does a solid job of mixing both girls’ stories and also sharing peeks into how the accident directly affects Nora through a series of journal posts scattered throughout the book. Those journal entries are from her perspective, written as letters to Stevie to explain how Nora is processing not only the accident but having Stevie get to know her again. It was a clever device since for the majority of the story we are left to wonder what Nora’s thinking and feeling.
Forget Me Not made me believe fate is real. You don’t often see two teenage girls and think of soulmates, but it is absolutely true of Stevie and Nora. The way Stevie finds her way back to Nora despite all of the obstacles in her way tugged at those heartstrings and made me smile. You can’t help but root for them to be together forever. And that’s really sweet.
Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick is out now.
Love and Loss Lead to Healing in YA Novel “I Will Find You Again”
You never forget your first love. This feels especially true of high school loves. Probably because teenage love is all consuming in a way that could only happen when the extent of your world is school, your family, and your friends. Without the minutiae of adult life getting in your way, it’s easy to pour your whole self into someone else.
Sarah Lyu’s I Will Find You Again deftly captures the volatile nature of teenage girls falling in love with each other for the first time. Chase Ohara and Lia Vestiano have been best friends for most of their lives. Then one day, they realized their feelings for each other had evolved into a romantic kind of love. Their relationship is a constant push/pull of emotions — sometimes their love isn’t strong enough to withstand the storms that come with being a teenager. When Lia dies tragically, Chase is left to piece together her death, but she begins to realize there’s a lot about Lia and their relationship that may not have happened the way she remembers.
Living in Meadowlark, a rich enclave of Long Island, NY, the girls are surrounded by nothing but the best. Lia is the adopted Korean daughter of rich white parents. Her mom Jo Vestiano is a TV cooking personality who has made an empire, and Lia is often the reluctant participant. Chase, who is the narrator of the book, is the daughter of a self-made Japanese businessman and a mom who works in advertising. The girls couldn’t be more different in terms of how they move through the world: Chase the determined overachiever, and Lia the one who just coasts along.
Lyu does a really great job creating complicated familial relationships. Both Chase and Lia have difficult relationships with at least one of their parents. Chase’s parents are divorced, and her father is largely absent. He works in corporate business, though it is never revealed exactly what he does. We do know that he travels a lot and left Meadowlark to move to New York City after the divorce to be closer to work. He pushes Chase to be like him, to be a model student so that she can go to Stanford and also work in business. She believes he’s disappointed in her because she didn’t do as well as she could have on the SATs. Lia and her mom have their own issues. Lia doesn’t want to participate in her mom’s show; she feels like a show pony brought out to boost ratings and make her mom look good. She doesn’t want to take over the family business, but her mom pushes her to find something she loves.
The pressure of the model minority plagues Chase throughout the book. Her father demands that she be exemplary: get the best grades, get into the best college, be the cream of the crop. He came from a poor Asian family and has spent his entire adult life fighting against that, to the detriment of his family. But what he doesn’t see, and what Chase doesn’t allow others to see, is what being the best is doing to her. For her, it’s always taking the right next step, because if she pauses for even a second, her whole life could fall apart like a losing game of Jenga. Her unrelenting quest for perfection is the driving force behind everything she does. She has to get the grades so she can go to Stanford, so she can be a CEO, so she can take over the world. It’s hard to tell if it’s really what Chase wants or what she believes she wants because she’s been told for so long it’s what she wants.
Lia, on the other hand, completely eschews the whole concept. She gets compared to Chase at school, but she doesn’t have to worry about being the best. And because she doesn’t have to worry, she seems to not to care about it either. All she has to do is make a call to one of her mom’s many connections to get an internship, an apartment, a job, whatever she needs. Unfortunately, it’s the dark, swirling undercurrent of how Chase approaches her relationship with Lia.
Mental health is one of the major themes that pushes the narrative forward in I Will Find You Again. While Lia is seen as a free spirit or untethered, in reality, she simply isn’t emotionally equipped to deal with the pressure of being the best. Her mental health is too precarious to push herself the way Chase does. Chase knows this, but it’s easy to forget when she’s so singularly focused. It’s not until the severity of Lia’s depression surfaces that Chase is smacked back to reality. Lia talks about wanting to not exist a lot. She feels like if she didn’t exist, she would be free from the pressure of greatness that she experiences from both Chase and her mom. It is clear that she’s suffering from some major depression she is constantly trying to cover. So Chase works with Hunter, the girl Lia was dating at the time of her death, to uncover more information about what Lia’s life was like before she died.
Hunter is the only person who has a clue of what Lia was thinking in the time leading up to her disappearance and death. At first, Chase remains wary of Hunter, who is equally wary of Chase. Unfortunately for both of them, Hunter has the answer to every question Chase has. But of course, nothing is ever that easy. Hunter makes Chase work for those answers, leading her down a very unexpected path. I don’t want to give too much away because it’s a major plot point, but Hunter isn’t the person Chase assumes she is.
Chases’s own mental health is precarious, but she doesn’t address it. The constant pressure from her dad causes her to take Focentra, an ADHD medication that she gets from fellow student Cole. Her dependence on the medication is something she doesn’t directly acknowledge. There aren’t enough hours in the day for her to get everything done, and thanks to the medication, she rarely sleeps, which has detrimental effects.
In the acknowledgements, Lyu thanks her therapist and the woman she roomed with during her own hospitalization for depression and suicidal ideation. It’s clear that it’s something she has intimate knowledge of; you can sense the care she gives the subject in I Will Find You Again. Before the acknowledgements page, there is a list of resources for people who may be facing some of the same challenges the characters face in the story. It’s great to see authors and publishers making the effort to include things like that in the book to make it easier for readers to find.
I Will Find You Again is without a doubt, a book about loss. About the loss of your best friend, your first love, and to a certain extent, your innocence. It’s a book that never shames its characters for the things they can’t control, and never tries to exploit the very real mental health struggles they face. But it’s also a book about perserverance. Lia may not overcome her mental health struggles. But Chase’s perserverance allows her to learn from Lia’s life and death that she is stronger than she gives herself credit for. It’s also a story about how love, that first all consuming kind of love, can help you heal.
A Sweet Sixteen Becomes a Coming Out Party in Queer YA Novel “Friday I’m in Love”
I remember when I was turning 16. I agonized about having a Sweet Sixteen; even though I like parties, I don’t always love being the center of attention. Ultimately, I did decide to have one, and I don’t regret it. Sweet Sixteen parties have become a ubiquitous part of American teen girl culture as a status symbol thanks to My Super Sweet 16. If you can’t do it in a grand way, then why even bother?
Mahalia Harris, the Black, queer teen at the center of Camryn Garrett’s new YA novel Friday I’m In Love (yes, like the song by The Cure), wants to throw a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend Naomi did. The thing is, Mahalia and her mom can’t afford it, no matter how much she wants one. Money has always been an issue for them, but Mahalia is determined to find a way to celebrate something. She may have missed the window to celebrate her birthday, but she has an ever better idea: What if she throws herself a coming out party? It’s going to take a lot to make it happen, but if she can pull it off, it’ll be perfect. This party will be even bigger than any Sweet Sixteen could ever be.
The odds are against Mahalia from the very beginning when it comes to her party. She really can’t afford it. As Naomi continually points out, Mahalia and her mom are barely making ends meet; she has to work part time at a local organic grocery store to pay for her phone and gas for the car she shares with her mom. Parties like the one she wants to throw don’t come cheap, which she soon realizes. Even when her mom decides to match whatever she can raise, it’s still A LOT of money. But that isn’t going to stop Mahalia, even if it seems impossible. She needs this party to work. It just has to.
At Naomi’s party, Mahalia meets a mysterious (but beautiful) girl in the bathroom. The girl helps her fix her smudged makeup, but before Mahalia can get her name, she’s gone. Just when all hope is lost, the mystery girl shows up that Monday in Mahalia’s history class. We love a good rom-com moment! Her name is Siobhan, and she’s just as dreamy as Mahalia remembers. There’s only one problem: Even though she’s only recently moved from Ireland, she’s already dating BMOC (big man on campus) Danny, who is the most annoying white boy Mahalia has ever dealt with. Things only get more complicated when the three of them are forced to work together on a history group project. The more time the girls spend together, the more complicated things get.
One of the things Garrett does best in Friday I’m In Love is capture the heady experience of a teenager falling for someone. I was immediately transported back to high school when reading. Mahalia isn’t obsessed with Siobhan, but it’s the high of someone awakening those feelings in you. They’ve only recently gotten to know each other, and Mahalia ropes Naomi into helping her create a playlist for Siobhan. Is it a little over the top? Well sure, but have you ever met a queer girl who’s met a new love interest? It tracks.
In the story, Mahalia never really mentions having crushes on any specific girls in the past; the only other queer experience you hear about is the first girl she kissed at summer bible camp. While it’s not explicitly stated, I get the feeling that Siobhan is her first real crush, and the vibe is very cute.
Teenage love is endearing, especially in rom-com form. It’s not an insta-love situation for both of them, and Garrett gives care to the journey of teenage feelings. Siobhan is on her own journey and, to her credit (and sometimes detriment), Mahalia doesn’t try to force anything. The girls form a fairly easy friendship, freaking out over the SATs and bonding over hamburgers on the beach. I enjoyed watching them learn about each other and themselves through their budding relationship.
Mahalia’s relationship with her best friend Naomi reminds me of my own high school best friends. Naomi has a very different life from Mahalia: Her parents are married with well paid professional jobs, and she is well liked and popular. She works with Mahalia at the grocery store, but unlike her bestie, she doesn’t have problems with their boss or the customers. Naomi teases Mahalia for her (excellent) taste in 80s and 90s music, but still offers critiques on Siobhan’s playlist. She is initially very supportive of Mahalia’s desire for her party, suggesting venues, buying decorations at Target, and taking her dress shopping. As time goes on though, she becomes less supportive, putting a strain on their relationship.
Garrett doesn’t shy away from the struggle of their financial dynamic. Mahalia is painfully aware of Naomi’s family’s lack of strife, especially when she and her mom go through so much. You can tell it bothers her, but she’s willing to put it aside because Naomi’s family is always so good to her. She eats dinner with them often, and they always make her feel welcome and accepted. But things aren’t so easy when Naomi makes well meaning comments about Mahlia’s financial situation in regards to her party.
Even though Naomi had taken her to a very expensive dress store, she balks when Mahalia spends a few hundred dollars on the handmade rainbow confection dress of her dreams. Eventually, Mahalia does say something, which causes tension for the friends. I do wish that Garrett gave that confrontation a little more attention. Yes, they’re teenagers, but they’re old enough to have an honest conversation about how Naomi’s privilege affects their friendship.
The thing is, for most of the book, Naomi is the only one who knows that Mahalia likes girls and is throwing a coming out party, not a belated Sweet Sixteen. Mahalia wants to use the party to tell her mom the truth about her sexuality. Her mother is religious enough that the topic of sexuality is a tricky one to navigate.
Again, Garrett doesn’t shy away from the hard parts. Mahalia’s relationship with her mother is complex and layered. Her mother had her at 16, her parents aren’t together anymore, and her dad has a new family. They are always hanging on by a thread, and while it keeps them close, it also pushes them apart. Garrett is careful not to move into maudlin or preachy territory when it comes to the precarious financial situation of the family, but she doesn’t gloss over it either. Mahalia is painfully aware how they are one crisis away from being in real dire straits. And when that crisis happens, Mahalia reacts in a very typical way for a teenage girl: She freaks out. She sees her party dreams disappearing and lashes out at her mom. It’s painful to read, but it feels right.
The scene where Mahalia comes out to her mom is painful but honest. Unlike a lot of other teen coming out stories, it doesn’t go the way she would have hoped, but she knew the risk because of her mother’s religious conviction. Still, it doesn’t make it hurt any less, and that hurt is palpable through the pages of the book. I wanted to reach through and hug her.
Friday I’m In Love is a rom-com though, and even among all this conflict, there’s still plenty of the lighthearted stuff. As Mahalia and Siobhan get to know each other, you can see both of them come out of their shells. Siobhan opens up about how hard it is to be biracial and new to the country, while Mahalia opens up about her difficult relationship with her dad. The girls spend time at the dog park with Siobhan’s puppy Doodle, and bond over music. It truly is so sweet to see them getting to know each other.
And even though many things go wrong, at the end of the day, not only does Mahalia get the girl, she gets the party, too.
Tess Sharpe’s New Queer YA Novel Will Have You Chanting “Kiss, Kiss, Kiss!”
I was talking with the owner of my local indie bookstore the other day, as you do, and we were both raving about books that somehow manage to deal with heavy topics without weighing down the reader and making them feel heavy too. I was a couple chapters into queer YA author Tess Sharpe’s latest book 6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) when I realized it was one of those special books. When you look at the cover — which emphasizes the romance and fanfic aspects of the book — you probably wouldn’t think it deals with any serious issues. It’s not that 6 Times We Almost Kissed isn’t a romance or an ode to fanfic. It absolutely is. But it’s also a searing look at grief, parental illness and death, rural medical access, trauma, and mental health. At the same time, it manages to be a swoony romance that will have you cheering for these two queer teen girls.
The two central characters in 6 Times We Almost Kissed are 17-year-old teen girls, Penny and Tate. Both are such full, real young women it’s a bit hard for me to remember that they are fictional! Tate has a reputation for being cold and aloof, which stems from her trying to keep herself together while her single mom has gone through not one but two major health crises. She cares very deeply for the few people she’s let get close to her and is incredibly loyal. She is a hardworking star on her swim team whose goal is to score a sports scholarship so she can go to college and earn enough so that her mom doesn’t have to worry about money anymore.
Equally strong and necessarily more mature and responsible than other kids her age is Penny. Although Penny is more emotionally open than Tate, she’s also been through a lot of trauma. Her dad died on a father-daughter rafting trip accident when she was 15, leaving her with permanent mobility issues in her hands and an emotionally negligent mother who abandoned Penny in her grief. Her mom has never made herself accountable or repaired their relationship. Penny loves the outdoors, especially the local river, and she is a planner and organization aficionado who outlines her life in steps in her bullet journal.
If you’re an avid fanfiction reader, right away you would have clocked Sharpe’s reference to “five times” fics, which she expands here to tell the intertwined lives of our heroines. She uses the structure to include snippets from different times in Penny and Tate’s high school years. Seeing Penny before her father’s death, before the trauma descends on her, is particularly bittersweet. Organizing the novel around these pivotal moments in Penny and Tate’s life allows Sharpe to not only give readers a full picture of Penny and Tate’s complicated history but to expertly pace the novel by slowly revealing the details of events that have been hinted at. It makes for an emotionally resonant, page-turning read.
In the present, these two young women are about to undergo another life-and-death event: Tate’s mom’s chronic illness has left her waiting for a liver transplant, and her best friend, Penny’s mom, has decided to become a living donor for her. In order to help both their families recover physically, emotionally, and financially from this exciting but scary endeavor, the “moms,” as Penny and Tate call them, decide to combine their households the summer before the girls’ last year of high school. If Penny and Tate were easy friends like you’d assume they would be with their mothers being lifelong friends, this wouldn’t be a hiccup. But while they’re not enemies, they’ve always kind of clashed. To put their moms’ health and recovery first, they make a pact to be nice and work together to present an easy, “everything is hunky dory” front for them.
The thing is, even if the moms weren’t both undergoing major surgery, Penny and Tate would be lying if they told their mothers that everything was fine between them. Because between bickering with each other and witnessing the best and worst of one another, they have a history of almost kissing. It’s a pattern that has followed them throughout their teenagehood, these odd little blips of undeniable attraction to each other that they have an unspoken agreement to ignore and never discuss after they happen. How on earth are Penny and Tate going to keep up this denial while living across the hall from each other and staying in Penny’s grandmother’s house alone with their moms recovering in Sacramento, hours away from their rural home?
They don’t, of course. The slow, slow burn of the story is Penny and Tate finally opening up to each other and being honest, mostly with themselves, about what it is that they actually want and what they actually mean to each other. It’s them finally seeing what everyone watching them from the outside sees, looking at these two and thinking, wow those are some soulmates right there. It’s so beautiful! After reading about the hardships each girl has gone through and how courageously they have fought for their own well-being, I can’t think of two other fictional queer girls who deserve a happy ending more. It’s difficult not to chant “kiss, kiss, kiss!” in your head while reading about all their almost kisses, even though Sharpe has already told you this isn’t the time their lips actually meet! And on more than one occasion, there is even only one bed that they have to share!!
The central romance is just one of the many compelling aspects of 6 Times We Almost Kissed. As someone who grew up in a rural place, I really appreciated how authentically rural this novel felt. Penny and Tate and their families live in the mountains in California; even though it’s a very different environment from where I’m from, I recognized a lot of details about Penny and Tate’s home and how they lived. They are the kinds of girls who know how to chop their own firewood to heat their house. They live in a place where you casually wait hours to carpool with someone because there is literally no other way to get around. Even when they’re mad at each other, they go for runs together because Tate has to keep up her training and it’s not good bear safety for her to run alone.
As complicated as Penny and Tate’s relationship is, Penny’s with her mom, Lottie, is even more so. For me it was the most painful part of the novel to read, even while Sharpe is careful to not make Lottie a simple villain. I mean, she’s giving her best friend half of her liver! But particularly as a new parent, reading about a parent who emotionally and physically abandons her kid in her grief for her husband was agonizing. On the one hand, I can’t imagine losing my partner suddenly in a tragic accident, and of course I have no idea how I would cope. On the other hand, I can’t imagine not putting my kid’s well being first and not openly communicating with and going through the process of grief with them instead of shutting them out. Sharpe smartly doesn’t wrap up Penny and Lottie’s story arc; there’s no moment where Lottie does a grand apology or where Penny forgives her. The focus is on Penny as her own person; she makes her own steps forward in healing journey apart from her mom, which is so affirming to witness.
Sharpe’s prose throughout the novel is thoughtful and evocative. She writes alternating chapters from Penny and Tate’s point of views, and their voices are clearly differentiated. Tate’s distracted mind often inserts parenthetical asides. Penny’s voice oozes with her practicality and tendency to organize. Simple metaphors and similes are incredibly effective at revealing the girls’ emotions, especially about each other. Tate tells us: “I’m sitting here, hanging on her words like she’s a cliff I’ve slipped from.” Penny thinks, after Tate says “Penny”:
“It’s just my name. I’ve heard it hundreds of times in my life. But this time, she kind of sighs it through her fingers as if she’s trying to hold it in. As if it’s suddenly become a secret I’m not supposed to hear.”
It’s a rare book indeed that manages to instill so much compassion and nuance into its exploration of weighty topics like grief and trauma while also creating an incredibly dreamy romance for the ages. To experience such a nail-biting, slow burn romantic plot starring two full, rich young queer women characters is thrilling. Even with less page time as supporting characters, the moms as well as Penny and Tate’s respective best friends, are just as compelling and authentic. 6 Times We Almost Kissed is a knockout. As Tate’s best friend tells her about Penny: “In every room you’re in, you’re always looking for her, Tate.”
Tess Sharpe, I’ll always be looking for your next book on every bookstore and library shelf.
6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe comes out tomorrow, January 24.
Ciara Smyth’s Queer YA Books Remind Me of Being a Teenager
I’m starting with my thesis right off the bat here: Ciara Smyth is one of the best authors in queer YA right now. Granted, she’s only two books into her career — The Falling In Love Montage (2020) and Not My Problem (2021) — but both are as hilarious as they are moving, with a very authentic and empathetic feel to her queer teenage characters. There are few YA authors whose characterization truly reminds me of being a teenager myself and who show that they really know and respect today’s teens, but Smyth is the real deal!
I recently finished Not My Problem, berating myself for being late to the party, as it was published in May last year. It is quite simply contemporary (queer) YA at its finest. I closed the book (metaphorically, since I was listening to the audio version) declaring that I would follow
Ciara Smyth wherever she and her writing went from now on. Not My Problem is laugh-out-loud funny, make-you-cry sad, and everything in between.
The novel is about 16-year-old Aideen, an Irish lesbian in her transition year who is struggling to keep the pieces of her life together. Her friendship with her longtime best friend Holly has slowly been deteriorating, with Holly becoming increasingly distant and indifferent. Her single mam has been left (again) by her piece of shit dad — who’s married and has kids with someone else — and is coping by starting to drink again. Aideen is falling behind and getting increasingly bad grades in all her classes. She feels responsible for taking care of her mam, and it’s cutting into her responsibilities at school.
This sounds like a lot; it is a lot. But Not My Problem is far from heavy. Partly because Aideen is such a wonderfully funny character, whose sarcastic jibes can compete with the best. But it’s also that Smyth refuses to wallow in the bad stuff and allows Aideen to be a well rounded teenager who’s not defined by being poor, or “at risk,” or the kid who’s had social services involved in her life. The book features ample high school shenanigans, queer crushes, new friendships, and an entrepreneurial endeavor with a very teenage feel.
It’s this entrepreneurial endeavor that is the catalyst for the plot. Aideen is minding her own business, having gotten out of gym with yet another parental note, which of course she writes herself. In the bathroom, she runs into Maebh, the principal’s daughter who is the definition of overachiever. Maebh is having a breakdown because of her overwhelming schedule and the pressure (external and internal) to excel at everything. She can’t possibly do it all, but the idea of quitting anything is laughable. When Aideen makes a joke that she’ll just have to break her ankle so she can quit all the sports teams and skip gym class, Maebh jumps on the idea, until she’s begging Aideen to just give her a little push down the stairs. When Aideen finally scrunches her eyes closed and relents, it’s a success: but only a sprain, luckily. It’s a bizarre yet bonding beginning for a burgeoning romance between Aideen and Maebh, as well as a very cute friendship trio between Aideen, Maebh, and Kavi, a guy who’d been sent to find the two girls and couldn’t help overhearing what happened.
Overachieving Maebh is mostly reviled at her school, though, for being too smart for her own good and for having too much earnest enthusiasm about stuff like environmental activism and school politics. Aideen first sees her as an enemy, and that’s not just because Maebh is the academic and athletic rival of Holly, Aideen’s best friend. Maebh has a reputation for being, well, annoying. She knows better and is cleverer than almost everyone and she doesn’t hide it. Of course, there’s a vulnerability in her that Aideen first glimpses in the bathroom and that is slowly revealed as the girls get to know each other. Although they first laugh it off, they later discuss how serious it is that Maebh was willing to harm herself instead of talking to her parents and cutting down on her insane schedule.
But back to Aideen the teenage entrepreneur. Kavi, although he faithfully keeps the promise of not repeating any details of what happened with Maebh and Aideen, does pass on the idea that Aideen is a cool kid who is up for doing unorthodox favors. Cue the teenage shenanigans I mentioned earlier. Soon her classmates are vying for Aideen’s favors, for which the only payment she asks is an unspecified favor in return in the future. Being the do-gooder at heart that Aideen is, she mostly uses these payment favors to do favors for the next teen who desperately needs her help, whether it’s buying the morning-after pill for someone whose dad is the chemist (pharmacist for us North Americans), breaking into the school to delete sexts off a confiscated cell phone, or helping a kid with super strict parents sneak out of the house and go to a party.
Aideen initially wants to orchestrate the favors all by herself, wanting to minimize the risk of others getting in trouble. But one of the lessons she learns over the course of the book is that it’s a sign of strength to ask for help when you need it. It’s a deeply moving journey that Aideen does not make without multiple stumbles. But even when she’s making big mistakes and pushing people away because she’s internalized the idea that she can only depend on herself, Aideen is effortlessly lovable. I wish I’d had a cool lesbian friend like her as a teenager!
Aideen’s also learning how to make new friends and evaluate what makes a good friend. There is a friend breakup scene in this book that was so real and sad I had tears streaming down my face as I was reading. But I’m always thrilled to see friendship breakups given the gravity they deserve. At the same time, Aideen’s burgeoning friendship with Kavi and Maebh, brought together by the favor business, is a true delight. A particularly memorable scene at a party has the three friends sitting in a bathtub wearing only towels while their rain drenched clothes and underwear dry in the host’s dryer. A heart-to-heart of the kind that can only occur when you’ve been through the kind of wild adventure that they just have and are essentially naked and vulnerable ensues.
Smyth’s first book, The Falling In Love Montage, similarly gives the spotlight to an Irish lesbian teen who is having difficulty being vulnerable. It follows the protagonist Saoirse for the summer after she graduates from high school. She meets a girl staying in her seaside town named Ruby. Ruby is a rom-com aficionado, and she convinces Saoirse to embark on a tour through the tropes of rom-coms — hence the title — like going to a fair and having a phone conversation where neither of them want to hang up.
Saoirse is determined to keep the relationship light and fun, despite her growing feelings for Ruby. There are a lot of reasons: her best friend turned girlfriend who she thought she’d be with forever broke up with her recently. Saoirse is terrified of having her heart broken again. The fallout soured her friendship with their mutual friend too.
But most of all, it’s the fact that her mom has early onset dementia and lives in a full time care home. Saoirse visits her every day but her mom no longer remembers who she is. Her mom’s condition is genetic, and it’s making Saoirse feel like it’s not worth investing in anything: a relationship, or the conditional acceptance she’s received to Oxford. She’s also furious at her dad, who wants to get remarried.
As you can tell, The Falling In Love Montage isn’t the lighthearted rom-com the cover might lead you to believe, although rom-com fans will enjoy all the references sprinkled throughout. If you’re looking for an HEA, this is not your book. Instead, though, Smyth opts for an equally sad, funny, and thoughtful story that feels very true to an older queer teen’s experiences and mistakes.
If you haven’t had a chance to pick up either of Ciara Smyth’s YA books, I highly encourage you to! If you are not Irish, like me, I recommend the audiobook format so you can luxuriate in the Irish accents and relax knowing that people and place names are being pronounced as they should be. Have you already read The Falling In Love Montage (2020) and/or Not My Problem (2021)? Join me in the comments to talk about them!
Malinda Lo’s New Coming-of-Age Queer Novel “A Scatter of Light” Shines Brilliantly
Author’s note: This review of A Scatter of Light by Malinda Lo contains some spoilers, and the quotes included are excerpted from an advance copy of the book and might differ from the final version.
In Malinda Lo’s new young adult novel, A Scatter of Light, we are history. By we, I mean me — a thirty-something Tumblr-era millennial queer who grew up during the fight for same-sex marriage, was born eons before the Tik even Toked, and is (mostly) too tired for the club these days. Leave it up to Malinda Lo to write a stunning narrative with the potential to make queer millennials feel equal parts affirmed and ancient as hell.
Kids (and publishers) will call this book historical fiction, and I guess they are right. It is mostly set in 2013 amidst the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s 2013 rulings on same-sex marriage. Despite my ardent denial, the 90s are two decades behind us, and I’ve moved into a category of adulting where one tells stories about the “good ol’ days” at bars, bookstores, and events that have been long retired. With references to anti-Prop 8 organizing, late aughts pop music, and staples of lesbian culture (hello San Fran Dyke March, melodramatic open-mic nights, and L Word critiques), A Scatter of Light has all of the makings of an idyllic ode to the queer “every day” of yesteryear.
In 2022, an ode to yesteryear might be the salve that all of us (old heads and baby queers alike) need to keep going. Let’s be honest: It is easy to get enveloped by the darkness of our “today.” We’re almost three years into a pandemic that continues to affect thousands of people every day. Across the United States, lawmakers continue to pass legislation targeting transgender folks’ access to care and safety. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and some say they’re coming for gay marriage next. Natural disasters continue to obliterate homes and end lives without much action from our government. Internationally, organizers are risking it all to fight back against authoritarian regimes. The heaviness of today makes A Scatter of Light shine even more brilliantly.
At the core of Malinda Lo’s seventh novel is a coming-of-age/coming-out love story set in Marin County, California. The novel’s protagonist, Aria Tate West, is a half-Chinese, half-white teenager from Massachusetts who has been sent to spend her summer with her famed-artist grandmother following a senior-year scandal. In some ways, Lo follows a pretty cookie-cutter guide to a bestselling “coming out” story: Girl is “straight.” Girl meets butch and thinks “I wish you were a boy.” Girl later discovers she is not straight. But of course, Malinda Lo is no basic b*tch, and neither is this narrative; instead, it is complex (sometimes unnecessarily so) and invites a grappling with the grayness of doing the “right thing.”
With the structure of Aria’s journey, Lo bridges the past, present, and future. A Scatter of Light is separated into three sections. The book begins in 2008 with a snapshot of Aria and her grandmother Joan’s relationship. It ends with a glimpse into Aria’s future set in 2023. Through artifacts and dialogue, Lo includes more references to historical queer (and Chinese) culture and people of the past — an intentional move that is revolutionary in itself. Among a flurry of censorship of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC narratives, histories, and ideas from K-12 schools and libraries (including Lo’s books), this book is a defiant reiteration of our quotidian (yet radical) existence across time.
Spoiler alert: Aria falls for the most butch of butches to break her spell of “straightness.” Her love interest Steph is a butch gardener from the Bay Area who writes acoustic ballads based on Adrienne Rich’s poems. I found myself returning to Rich’s The Dream of a Common Language while reading Lo’s newest novel. Rich’s collection, a centerpiece for Aria’s exploration, is known for its celebration and discussion of women (and their relationship with other women).
In “XVII,” Adrienne Rich writes:
“No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we’re not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.”
Following suit, A Scatter of Light is a book of crashes (and crushes) with effects that reverberate across time. It is queer in the best of ways — messy, raw, heartbreaking, freeing, and imperfect. Marketed as a companion novel to National Book award-winning Last Night at the Telegraph Club, the connection to Lo’s previous bestseller feels forced and unnecessary given the depth and complexity of Aria’s story. The narrative might have been served better if some plot points, such as the rad mention of Bernice Bing’s work, were either explored further or omitted altogether. While the book is stacked with racially diverse secondary and tertiary characters, it would have been nice to have a non-white primary love interest in narrative with such potential. Despite all of this, however, Lo’s newest offering is beautifully composed, often feeling like a peek into your best friend’s hot (queer) girl summer.
Make no mistake, though, this book is a bit heavy at points. Like many of us, Aria’s queer awakening is accompanied by some stress, heartbreak, and grief. The heaviness doesn’t diminish the light found in Lo’s novel, though. If anything, it might make readers feel even more connected to Aria’s experiences of love, joy, and pleasure during her summer adventures. In her narration of Aria using a telescope, Lo writes, “I had to let my eyes adapt to the darkness…to wait for the turbulence in the air to settle, and finally when everything in motion was in motion together, I might see something amazing.” A truly amazing gift, A Scatter of Light is a historical fiction book that serves as a love letter to all we once were, the mistakes we made, and the selves we will become.
Despite the darkness of this moment, Malinda Lo’s newest book (out today) reminds us of the light in our truth.
Queers make mistakes.
Some queers are not yet queer.
Queers are messy.
Queers are alive and free.
Queers find love.
Queers find themselves.
Queers break hearts.
Queers grow old.
We have always been.
We will always be.
It is these truths that make it a book worth reading (and also one likely to be banned). Get it, read it, teach it, hold it (and those you love) tightly.
Author Melanie Bell on her YA Novel “Chasing Harmony” and the Messy Process of Growing Up Queer
Growing up queer is not for the faint of heart, and for 16-year-old Anna Stern, that stress is compounded by the pressure she feels as a musical prodigy. She was three when she first sat down at a piano and transported herself to a world beyond her living room; but a decade later, as school concerts loom and she tries to navigate a complicated relationships with her parents and best friend, music has begun to feel more like a burden than an escape.
Told in scenes spread across Anna’s young life, Chasing Harmony captures the messy, imperfect process of growing up, and asks: what does it take to create the life you want, when the people around you, like your parents, have watched their own dreams wither with time? I spoke to author (and former Autostraddle contributor!) Melanie Bell about Anna’s journey, about her writing process, and about what might be on Anna’s Spotify playlist these days.
Darcy: The queer YA scene has flourished in the past decade, particularly in the past five years, and Chasing Harmony is a really fresh addition to the genre! Your other work thus far has been a bit different — together with Kacie Berghoef, you wrote a nonfiction work, The Modern Enneagram. What drew you to YA? How did you end up wanting to tell Anna’s story?
Melanie: I got the idea for this coming-of-age story while traveling across Canada and reading two books, Melissa Bank’s The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing and Leonard Cohen’s The Favourite Game. Both spoke to me about the messiness of growing up. One thing I got out of Bank’s book was the idea of life not turning out how you think it will, and from Cohen’s, I got the concept that people’s idealizations of art or beauty can blind them to the person they’re looking at. So I started writing about a character with immense talent, and the friction between the expectations that creates and the realities and difficulties of growing up. When I was younger, successes and failures felt huge, and this is the case for Anna.
In your novel, we have a main character whose feelings of otherness are tethered not only to queerness, and to a fraught family life, but also to the specter of having been a musical prodigy, and to feelings around the need to escape the preordained path that her potential has set her on. I’m curious what relationship you have to music (if any!), and what led you to choose musical genius as one of Anna’s defining opponents in her fight to grow up and become an individual.
Music was an important part of growing up for me. My mother is musical and often had some kind of music playing. I sang in choirs, competed a bit in music festivals, and played clarinet and saxophone in bands, so music was a great social context. I wrote some terrible songs and briefly played piano. When writing about Anna’s musical background, I assigned her the three instruments I was familiar with.
I could get very immersed in listening to music, but I didn’t have a particular knack for it. There’s an element of wish fulfillment in writing about a musical prodigy! More so, I was inspired by the lived experiences of people I met who were identified as musical prodigies and had long journeys involving conflict between their abilities and personal needs and finding who they were beyond the weight of expectations. It’s hard for performance to live up to identified potential. As a former academic high achiever, I could relate to this gap.
The structure of Chasing Harmony has a bit of dream-like quality; the narrative moves between ages, and from scene to scene within those sections, very fluidly. The structure helps us embody the make-believe that helps Anna through her parents’ anger and her own perfectionism. Did you begin writing with that structure in mind, or was it a choice you made later on in the process?
I began writing with that structure. I wanted to explore different times within Anna’s life. Anna is fascinated by time: how it passes, how it changes things, and how things stay the same. I had a bare-bones outline that went back and forth between time periods, deliberately contrasting what happened, though some parts changed in writing and revisions.
In the novel, Anna and her best friend, Liss, have a relationship that’s fraught in ways Anna can’t face head-on as a young teen. Without spoiling too much, I’ll say that it was nice to see Anna and Liss get some closure in the last few chapters. I think a lot of queer folks are familiar with that sort of loaded-friendship-that-could-be-more, the gray areas that exist as a teen because you’re not really ready to fully pull back the curtain and shed light on things. It was cathartic, getting that closure for Anna and Liss! Was it cathartic writing it?
Yes, it was cathartic to write. I think it was important for Anna to get closure in order to move on and define a direction for herself.
I wanted to ask you about your journey to get Chasing Harmony published. While it feels like there are now more LGBTQ+ YA titles out there than ever before, it’s also a very troubling cultural (political) time for diverse books, at least here in the States. You live in the UK, but Chasing Harmony has a US publisher — what’s your sense of the current moment in publishing?
It’s a bit of a paradox. More queer content is being published — but also banned and censored. Maybe it’s reached a tipping point of being visible enough for a backlash? As you mentioned, I’m not in the US, so I’m removed enough from things that I’m just speculating. But I’m definitely enjoying the diverse and exciting titles that are being published!
It’s so exciting, by the way, to be talking with someone who’s also written for Autostraddle! I’m always curious to speak to writers who are making sustainable careers out of writing in 2022, “in this economy,” as Twitter would say. You write at your day job, and you also publish. Chasing Harmony was published through an indie publisher, Read Furiously. I’m curious about your day-to-day writing process, and how you stave off burnout, which Chasing Harmony’s Anna dealt with in a very real way before she even hit age 18.
Thanks! I stave off burnout by writing at a pace I can handle. My day job involves a combination of writing and editing, and it places a high value on work-life balance, so the rate of production is reasonable. In my own writing, I like trying different projects and genres. I work well with deadlines when I’m writing for someone, but personal work proceeds at its own speed.
I’d describe my writing process as careful. I don’t keep set hours, but I’m usually chipping away at an ongoing project. I often self-edit lightly as I write. All writers are different in what works for them. The key is to get the writing done.
Final question: What music do you think is on twenty-something Anna’s Spotify playlist these days?
Anna is always on the lookout for innovative sounds. She’d probably like Caroline Shaw and Angélica Negrón, for example. I think Anna would relate a lot to Encanto, with its themes of family expectations and the burdens that “having a gift” can create. In particular, “Surface Pressure” and “What Else Can I Do?” might feature on her playlist. I like to imagine her reconnecting with her mother through music, such as both of them listening to 2021’s inaugural recording of Salieri’s opera Armida. Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” was survival music for Anna, and she probably still listens to it for old times’ sake. Oh, and I should add that there’s a Spotify playlist for Chasing Harmony, featuring songs from the book!
Get in Your Back-to-School Feelings With These 10 Queer YA Books
Back-to-school time is my favorite time of the year now that I’m an adult. Summer is over, my kiddo is out of the house during the day, life returns to a routine. But sometimes I miss the time in my life when “back to school” meant shopping at the mall for a new first-day-of-school outfit, loading up on blank notebooks and pens, and seeing my friends for the first time in months.
Books that feature high-school-aged characters bring me right back to those times. There is something to be said about going back to that time when you know it’s long behind you. School is such an important part of your life when you’re a teen, and capturing those moments in a story, or having much of the story revolve around the day to day of being in high school, just hit a little different. At least they do for me. If you miss it a little or just need a reminder of what that feels like, this is the list for you.
Fresh by Margot Wood
The first year of college is a real ride, am I right? Elliot McHugh thinks her first year at Emerson College is going to be a breeze. Little does she know she’s going to be the living embodiment of the phrase “fuck around and find out.” She thinks freshman year is going to be full of sex and shenanigans (which it is) but then she forgets one important part…SCHOOL. It’s one thing to not have declared a major yet, but it’s a whole different thing to half-ass your way through classes and expect to pass. Elliot definitely learns this the hard way, as so many of us do.
This book is also one of the queerest YA/NA books I think I’ve ever read. Elliot is hella queer. She sleeps with a bevy of co-eds throughout the book, and she also has a ton a queer friends. Despite really taking advantage of the amount of new people to sleep with, she keeps having the most deliciously intense sexual tension with her RA, Rose. Rose is constantly exasperated by Elliot’s shenanigans, and Elliot hates that Rose is somehow always around and spoiling her fun. (PS: the book is a loose retelling of Emma, so Rose’s last name is Knightley after the Mr. Knightley character in the book.)
Fresh is such a fun romp of a book. Because Elliot has ADHD, there are footnotes in the book so you can follow along with her thoughts as they kind of ping ping around in her brain. Also, you’re never going to look at chicken tenders the same way ever again.
As a content warning, there’s a sexual assault midway through the book.
Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler
I am not a sports queer by any stretch of the imagination. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love a sports story — especially a football story. So when I heard about this book, I was intrigued, and it’s by one of my favorite YA authors.
Amber has one goal: to become captain of the cheerleading squad her senior year. And she’s well on her way to making that happen. That is, until Jack shows up. The new team quarterback, Jack, isn’t what anyone is expecting — she’s a girl. Amber is the most surprised — not because Jack’s a girl, but because she can’t stay away from her. But if Amber gets too close to Jack, she stands to lose a lot; most importantly, her chance as captain of the cheerleading squad. But sometimes you gotta do it.
This book really does perfectly encapsulate those first few months of a new school year as an upperclassman. I didn’t go to regular high school, but I really wish I had just to experience Homecoming from a distance.
Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aminah Mae Safi
There is nothing I love more than a good enemies-to-lovers story, and I think it’s because of this book. Rachel and Sana could not be more different: Rachel is a feminist filmmaker and Sana is gasp a cheerleader. And after an incident sophomore year, they’ve been sworn mortal enemies…but are they really?
With Rachel dangerously close to not completing her senior project film (which she has to finish to go to film school), the only way she’s going to get it done is if they work together. Sana is the only person who can star in it and show Rachel all the things she’s missing. Not only is Sana the picture perfect leading lady, but she’s the only one who will dare challenge Rachel’s creative vision. Maybe they’re not actually mortal enemies; maybe it’s just fear. For Rachel, it’s the fear of trusting someone, but for Sana, falling for Rachel brings out the fear of people knowing who she really is. Especially because she’s not as sure as she once was about it.
The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley
I didn’t know how badly I needed this queer theatre nerd book until I read it. If you’re a theatre kid (like I was), you know all about showmances. There’s something about spending a lot of long hours with people that can make you fall in love with them. But sometimes, they can really get in the way of the production, and that has dire consequences for everyone involved.
Melody McIntyre is no stranger to a school production showmance. She’s had one for just about every play she’s been a stage manager for, often with utterly disastrous consequences for not only her but the production itself. So when her friends make her swear she will keep their spring musical strictly professional, she takes the challenge. They’re doing Les Miserables, her favorite show and the one she’s been dreaming of stage managing since she was a kid. And things are going well…until she finds herself spending a lot of time with Odile Rose, one of the show’s stars.
Now Melody’s stuck. Because the one thing she wants to do is the one thing she literally can’t. But curses are meant to be broken, aren’t they?
Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins
A royal with a bad streak, girls who kiss, and boarding school in the Scottish Highlands? Say less.
Millie ends up in a far too common situation for a teenage queer; she’s ended up in a romantic entanglement with her best friend, who then acts like it wasn’t serious between them and starts kissing someone else. Some people would just sit at a different lunch table, but not Millie. She applies to (and gets into) an exclusive prep school in Scotland. Culture shock is a thing to deal with, but she has no idea that her roommate Flora is going to be an actual freaking princess. And she’s a total brat.
After getting over Flora’s attitude and a reality check, the girls realize the other isn’t so bad. Before Millie can believe it, they’re kissing behind giant rocks in the idyllic Scottish countryside (more of this please!) and sneaking off during Flora’s royal engagements to make out (again, more of this!). But Millie doesn’t think she can do this whole kissing-in-secret thing again. Will they figure out how to navigate the world together?
We Used to Be Friends by Amy Spaulding
It’s hard to capture an entire school year in one book, which is why most authors won’t do it. But Amy Spaulding does it in the most clever way possible — a dual POV story told in dual timelines. (Think like the musical The Last Five Years but teenage girls.) James (a girl with a “boy’s” name) is telling the story of the ending of her relationship with her best friend Kat from the end of senior year to the beginning, while Kat tells the story from the beginning to the end.
James is suffering mightily because her parents — who she thinks are the definition of the perfect relationship — are getting divorced. So of course, she’s going through a total crisis of faith when it comes to love. But at the same time, Kat, who has been dating the same shitty guy for most of high school, meets someone new and falls in love. That someone just happens to be a new girl who intrigues Kat after a meet cute with a lasagna (that was the first thing I heard about the book, and I was SOLD).
While the dissolution of the friendship is the crux of the book, Kat’s budding relationship with Quinn is a huge part of her storyline, including their fight to both be crowned prom queen. Senior year is so emotionally fraught without the addition of a new love interest and the struggle of losing your best friend in the process.
The Prom by Saundra Mitchell
This book is a novelization of the Broadway musical of the same name, which is cool because it goes to places the play can’t because of time constraints. Mitchell worked with the creative team from the musical to make sure the story doesn’t stray too far from the original, and as someone who has seen the musical and read the book, I think it does a good job.
Emma wants to take her girlfriend Alyssa to the senior prom. But they live in Indiana, and the PTA who hosts the prom has decided to cancel it under the pretense of maintaining the town’s family values. Oh, and Alyssa’s mom is the head of the PTA and totally unaware of the baby gay in her house. Obviously things get complicated. Alyssa was going to use the prom to come out to her mom. After a group of clueless and desperate Broadway actors show up to champion Emma’s cause to elevate their own fame, Emma learns an important lesson: You have to take your story into your own hands.
The promposals in this make me really glad that wasn’t a thing when I was in high school. Isn’t prom stressful enough without having to throw a person a parade to ask them to go with you?
Forward March by Skye Quinlan
Most of the time in pop culture, band kids are the butt of the joke or just side characters. This book is bringing a band kid front and center. Even though Harper is called “Band Geek,” she’s more than that. For starters, she’s trying to figure out her sexuality, complicated by the fact that her dad is a Republican.
Someone decides to troll Harper by creating a dating profile for her without her knowledge — a big no-no. If her mom — the school dean — found out, it would be big trouble for several reasons, including the fact that Harper still isn’t sure that she’s into girls. But then the leader of the drumline, Margot, swipes right. And now Harper has a lot to figure out. And did I mention that her REPUBLICAN dad is running for president? Her being into girls could really slow his momentum on the campaign trail. But sometimes you just have to be who you are, even if it costs your dad the White House.
Forward March also features an asexual lesbian main character, which is something we don’t see nearly enough.
Some Girls Do by Jennifer Dugan
School is such an important part of this story for multiple reasons. First, Morgan is kicked out of her Catholic school where she’s a track star because being out and proud goes against their code of conduct. Senior year is almost over, but she has to transfer to a new school where her running career is in danger, which could mess up going to college for her.
For Ruby, college is something that feels too out of reach. She lives with her mom in a trailer and works in exchange for pageant lessons. Her mother’s pageant career ended when she got pregnant, and so even though she’d rather be working on her classic car, she spackles on the makeup and rhinestones to keep her mom happy. But then she learns that pageants can help her pay for community college and get out from her mom’s thumb.
The two girls meet by chance when Ruby almost runs Morgan over with her car. But then they just keep crossing paths and realize they don’t mind it. Morgan finds her queer community for the first time, while Ruby keeps her sexuality stuffed away like a pair of socks to fill the cups on her pageant dress. How will they overcome the hurdle (couldn’t help it) together?
Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler
I told you all how much I love this author, so let this be a testament to that. When I first heard this book described, it was sold to me as a queer version of Grease. Listen, that’s all I needed to know. This book was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021. One of the things it does best is paint a picture of the beginning of the school year. Even though you’re in school, your mind still drifts to summer. So imagine how Lara feels when her summer fling Jasmine shows up at school, throwing a wrench in the budding relationship with BMOC Chase that Lara has been dreaming about since freshman year.
The struggle of having your summer crush (the one you never saw coming and never thought you’d see again) show up on your first day of school is deliciously played here. Sun-kissed hair among the lockers, the tans fading even though the memories won’t. But also, there’s this weird reality of having that person in what you thought was your space. Trying to pay attention in English class is hard when you’re remembering the feeling of your fling’s hands on your body, and Lara’s in for a wild ride.
Bonus Middle Grade Option:
Drew Leclair Gets A Clue by Katryn Bury
This middle grade story is an explicitly queer, modern day Harriet the Spy. True crime fan Drew has to use her sleuthing skills (and her dearth of internet resources including her online sleuthing group) to figure out who has been cyberbullying her classmates. On top of that, she is deep in the throes of early adolescence. Her mom left and she’s trying to wrap her head around that. Oh, and she thinks that she may be attracted to girls, which would explain a lot about who she tends to like.
This book smacks you right back to middle school in a visceral kind of way. But it’s sweet and has a whole lot of heart. Plus, who doesn’t love a baby queer?
Quiz: Which Fictional Heroine From a Classic Tween Book Are You?
If your tweenhood was anything like mine, you spent a considerable amount of time reading books about girls your age going through the same stuff you were (dreading/wishing for your period, making friends, annoying your older siblings), and maybe some stuff you weren’t (being adopted even though you weren’t a boy, spying on your neighbors and writing it all down in a notebook). You’ve probably been dying to know since then which classic fictional tween heroine you are. Wonder no more! Take this quiz and find out!
Quiz: Which Trans YA Book Should You Read This Pride Month?
Trans YA has come a long way in the past decade, with talented trans and nonbinary writers finally being given the resources and publication opportunities they deserve. (I should note, though, white authors are still overrepresented here — as they are in cis queer lit — and publishing needs to do better!). At the same time, we are witnessing a huge backlash with widespread challenges to and censorship of books by and/or about LGBTQ+ and/or people of color happening in the US right now. It’s alarming and disturbing. Here is an anti-censorship toolkit that you can use to help. Once you’ve helped get trans YA books like these in the hands of youth who need them, pick up one of them yourself. Take this quiz to find out which one is for you!
Malinda Lo on Her Historic National Book Award Win and Lesbian Literature’s History and Future
Feature image via Malinda Lo’s Instagram
I was put on this earth to read gay historical fiction, and let me tell you, what a time to be alive. Malinda Lo’s National Book award win last month for her latest novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, affirmed everything that I love about this genre: the vivid and well-researched specificity, the emotional stakes of complicated historical moments, and the commitment to bringing queer community to life in ways that honor both the perseverance of the time and the progress we’ve made since.
This novel tells the story of a Chinese-American teenager in San Francisco named Lily who comes of age in the mid-50s, dreaming of space travel, covertly reading chapters of drug store lesbian pulp novels, and sneaking out to the Telegraph Club, the dyke bar of our dreams (based on the real San Francisco institution Mona’s!). In Lo’s hands, 1950s Chinatown is so close you could almost touch it. After covering her award announcement, I was lucky to catch up with Malinda to discuss how she brought Lily, Kath, and their milieu to life.
Yash: I just wanted to start by telling you how excited all of us were and what an accomplishment this win is. Last year’s National Book Award for Young People’s Literature went to Kacen Callender for King and the Dragonflies, which was the first LGBTQ book and the first LGBTQ middle grade book to win the title. But because your book is published as young adult rather than middle grade, that makes your book the very first LGBTQ YA winner in the category, as well as the first F/F winner in the category. So that’s huge. Congratulations.
Malinda: Oh, wow. I didn’t actually know that! Thank you for doing the research.
It’s a huge and well-earned success, especially because you know the F/F literary landscape better than just about anyone. Your data and your research on it as a field are so widely cited and influential. How does it feel to have so conspicuously moved the needle in this way?
Oh my God. Well, I didn’t know I had moved it until you told me! I’m honestly surprised. I thought there had been another one, and I think the fact that there hasn’t is a very big sign of how things have changed. I’m so happy that things have changed in this positive direction, in this little area of our lives.
I agree; it’s incredibly meaningful! There have been YA winners by queer authors who don’t mention queerness in the text; there have been YA winners where the protagonists were straight but side characters were queer; and there have been YA finalists with queer protagonists that didn’t ultimately win. But this is the very first YA book with a queer protagonist to win the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.
It’s so weird to think of it as a winner! I still find it a little shocking.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club is historical fiction, but your previous books span fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary thriller genres too. So, in your writing, is F/F representation in each of these genres a deliberate mission or goal? And did your work in these other genres influence your historical fiction in any unexpected ways?
I have certainly wanted to write about queer girls and women in every genre. I’m very deliberately putting characters like me in the narratives in these different genres. That is a goal of mine. The genre thing, it’s so interesting because I think people find it unusual that I write in so many different genres. But as a reader, I read everything! So it’s not like I only read one kind of book, and I think I bring a reader’s perspective to writing in the different genres. I know that writing in all these genres has been a huge education to me as a writer. I’m pretty much self-trained. I didn’t major in English or anything like that. So writing in each one of these genres has been a challenge every single time. I actually think writing historical fiction has been the biggest challenge of all.
That’s so interesting!
It was really hard. And I did use some techniques of fantasy in this book because you’re creating a historical world. It’s not the contemporary world. So you do need to do some world-building in the story. But yeah, historical fiction was hard. How do you put all these historical details and facts in the story without turning it into a history lesson, right? I didn’t want it to be a history lesson. I wanted the reader to be fully immersed in the story and to get lost in that world, not just ticking off dates and names.
You evoke such a specific moment in time so vividly. The book explores McCarthy-era interlocking oppressions, and homophobia isn’t the only or even the most pressing axis of discrimination, which is rare for LGBTQ historical fiction. The depiction of racism and xenophobia really adds so much nuance to our understanding of the characters. How did you arrive at that specific historical moment and those specific years for the setting of the story?
When I started working on the novel, I didn’t know very much about the 1950s. So I had to go do a bunch of research into what actually happened. Because of Lily’s family, there were certain things I wanted to build into the story about immigration. Her family’s immigration story is kind of based on my family’s, except it’s the opposite. My paternal grandparents met in the U.S. in 1933, and then they went back to China, during World War II. So I wondered what would’ve happened if my grandparents had stayed in this country, which is what Lily’s parents do. World War II is the reason that they would have been able to stay actually, because to get citizenship Lily’s father would have had to enlist in the Army. From there, I counted forward from that time to arrive in 1954 and 1955.
I understand in the UK, they’re going to be marketing it as an adult rather than a YA book. The interstitial chapters from Lily’s family’s perspectives seem to account for how this book moves so seamlessly between different categories.
I think it is unusual to have chapters like those in a “young adult” novel. I’m not really sure why. My editor’s the one who suggested that I put them in, and I had thought I wasn’t allowed to have perspectives from adults. And I do think they were important to have in, because Lily would have no way of knowing some things I wanted the reader to know. I wanted the reader to know why her parents had made those choices. They didn’t just do it out of the blue.
I remember being a teenager and feeling like, “not only do my parents not understand me, but I don’t understand them either.” It’s powerful for a reader, especially a young reader, to understand both sides of those confrontations.
I remember when I was a teenager, I was often trying to understand my parents. Because we came to this country in 1978, and there was this Communist China as history hanging over my family. I knew some of what my family had experienced there because my grandmother had actually written a memoir about it. So I’d learned about my family’s experiences in a book.
Encountering your family as historical figures and not just as family members is such a unique perspective that really contextualizes the book’s level of historical attention. Which brings us to the afterword, where you elaborate on the Chinese history and LGBTQ+ history that informed your work. In addition to queer historians like Nan Alamilla Boyd and novelists like Sarah Waters, I really loved the attention you gave to the dyke pulp novels that Lily reads in the drug store. It felt like such a loving homage to the work of Marijane Meaker, Ann Bannon, Tereska Torres, and all those other heroes of the fledgling lesbian literary scene. How do you situate this novel in that literary lineage?
Oh my goodness, that’s such an interesting question. Yeah, that I would be really honored to have it in that lineage. The lesbian writers who were writing at that time obviously were often writing under lots of constraints, and they wrote what they could. I re-read The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith a couple of times when I was writing this book, and I was amazed by how direct she was able to be! She was very direct about Therese’s, the main character’s attraction to Carol. It was very clear for Therese. She never questioned it.
She’s so matter of fact!
She is! And it showed me that I could write characters who are also very clearly aware, “Yep. I’m gay.” Some people know and are not necessarily torn up about it. Some people are, absolutely — I personally had a very difficult time coming out, but that doesn’t mean everyone has had my experience. It was great to read a book written during the time period of Telegraph Club and understand that I could have those more accepting representations of queerness.
I loved all of the details in your afterword about the Chinese history, the American political history, the queer history. Were there any memorable details you found from your research process that didn’t make it into the book?
Oh my gosh. There were so many details I couldn’t put in, but one thing I remember, which is just a little funny side note for me, is that when I went to the GLBT Historical Society, I listened to a recorded interview with a queer Asian American woman who talked about her experiences in San Francisco in the ’60s. And she had been working as a clerk, I think, at Macy’s. And she said that all the managers were lesbians in the women’s department in Macy’s. They all knew about it. And she said they also all went to Wellesley, which cracked me up because I went to Wellesley. When I went to Wellesley in the ’90s, Macy’s was still recruiting at my college. So that really made me laugh. And sadly, I couldn’t include that in the book because there was no reason to. But I really enjoyed it, knowing that the Macy’s managers were all lesbian.
That makes me so happy. Especially because you do have Lily and Lana encounter each other in the department store where Lana works, and they can’t acknowledge that they know each other. The idea of the unspoken, these queer secret handshakes and these secret pockets of community is so compelling. Another thing that stood out to me was your inclusion of drag culture. Drag is such a powerful force in queer media, but there is relatively little about female drag kings and male impersonators beyond Tipping the Velvet or Leslie Feinberg’s novel Drag King Dreams. Honestly, it’s hard enough to get F/F representation even without more overt gender transgressing, so your inclusion of this theme felt especially meaningful. What drew you to drag kings as the specific impetus for Lily’s self-discovery?
I was very inspired by Tipping the Velvet. But also I lived in the lesbian community in San Francisco in the 2000s and drag was certainly around. There was a very active and supportive butch/femme community there. It was just part of the scene. And I think that in many of the representations of queer women’s spaces that I have read in fiction often avoid butch/femme dynamics. They often avoid female masculinity. And I love it! I want to put it in there because that was such a central part of my own queer experience. It’s fun to write about drag performance. Tommy, the male impersonator in my book, was super fun for me to write. I love Tommy. I mean, I think she’s kind of a jerk, but I still love that.
She’s just such a recognizable kind of person. She’s very, very charismatic and she knows it. She knows exactly the power that she wields.
Yes. People have met her. If you’ve been a lesbian, you’ve met her already.
I’m pretty sure I’ve dated her.
There you go. Rite of passage!
It’s so interesting to hear you talk about Tommy, drag, and female masculinity, because that takes us pretty seamlessly to my next question. If I had to pick one moment with Lily’s love interest Kath that I cherish the most, it would be when they’re in the Telegraph Club and someone tells Kath, “I can spot the baby butches from a mile away.” And Lily looks over at Kath and realizes, “Oh, my God, they’re right.” Those butch/femme dynamics are so hard to come by in fiction! I’d love to know more about why including this butch/femme element was important to you and what you hope readers notice about it.
I think that it’s important to me because it is the community that I was in. My queer friends may not identify specifically as butch or specifically as femme, although some do. But that dynamic, the masculine-feminine interplay, is certainly there. It has always been there in every single lesbian community I have been in. So when I see that it is largely erased from popular culture about lesbians, it makes me angry. And I don’t want it to be erased! I want it to be celebrated and described because it exists! It’s a truth about being a queer woman.
Especially in YA, I struggle to think of another character who is allowed to experiment with butchness in a way that is really specifically called out. There’s Britta Lundin’s book that came out this year, Like Other Girls, but before these recent titles I barely remember ever seeing a teenage girl who’s allowed to be butch, and to use that word and to take that mantle on.
There are a few, but there are very few and far between. It’s just like in popular culture, there’s this idea that butch/femme is a stereotype. And I understand why people want to avoid stereotypes, but they’re also avoiding the complexity around it and the history around it. And I didn’t want to avoid that.
I’d also love to talk a little more about Shirley, Lily’s straight best friend, who is this assertive, domineering, often uncompromising person. One of my favorite themes in your work is the intensity and potential danger of the capital-F Fraught Female Friendship. What do you think is the significance or the continued resonance of this trope?
I don’t know that I think about it as a trope. I think that Shirley is someone that Lily envies. Shirley gets to have it all. She gets to be the most popular girl in their community. She is a good Chinese girl. So Lily’s like, “Why can’t I have that too?” But Lily doesn’t want to do any of that. And it’s a difficult place for her to be in, because she both envies her and cannot ever be like her, and she knows that.
I feel like in high school also, when you’re in a smaller community, you’re stuck with people that are around you. I’ve certainly had friendships in my life with people because they were there. And after we moved away, those friendships ended. But while we were there, that’s what we had. One of the big struggles of adolescence is dealing with the friends that you have around you.
This question contains spoilers, but speaking of community and family, one of the most intense moments for me as a reader was the confrontation with Lily’s parents after she’s run away and been staying at her friend’s. However unreasonably or anachronistically, on some level I wanted Lily to resist that kind of punishment, which obviously wouldn’t have been realistic. I was so impressed that you didn’t make the easy choice of the unambiguously happy ending in that scene. In the hands of a less brave author, I can imagine someone making Lily’s family immediately accepting to soften the landing for the characters so everything ends “happily ever after”. Your version felt much truer to the characters’ emotional backgrounds as well as just the historical time. How did you arrive at that decision, and what do you want your readers to take from that really complicated dynamic?
Oh, well, I don’t know if I’m brave so much as just Chinese! To me, Lily never had a choice. There was no alternative for her. Growing up as a Chinese daughter in an immigrant family, you know that there are certain things you have to do, whether you like them or not. And you can resist them as much as you want. I certainly resist a lot of things. Lily tries to resist. But ultimately she is her parents’ daughter, and she has to do what they are going to make her do. What else can she do? Run away and knock on Lana’s door again? There is no other choice that she can see and she has to make the most of that situation. I knew it would be hard, and I wanted to give her an out in the end. I wanted her to have adult family members like her Aunt Judy too, who were not homophobic, and who just simply didn’t understand at the time because it was new to them as well.
My next question is what is next for you after this book? Do you think you’re going to revisit these characters or this genre, or are you going to try something completely new?
Well, my next book is coming out next fall. It’s called A Scatter of Light, and it is set in 2013, and you will see some characters from Telegraph Club in A Scatter of Light. But just keep in mind, it’s 60 years later. So time has passed and it’s a very different book. It’s a coming of age novel set in northern California about art and grace and desire. It’s interesting because I wrote it before and after Last Night at the Telegraph Club. So I’ve been working on this book for a very long time.
That is such a fascinating writing process.
Well, it was not the process I would’ve chosen for this book. When I first wrote it, it was back in 2013, and I was unable to sell it to a publisher at the time. I think when it went out on submission in 2015, it was too far ahead of its time, really, because it was quite sexy and it was clear to me from the rejections that I got that that was not okay. But through that process of rejection, I ended up meeting my editor, who bought a different book from me which became A Line in the Dark, my psychological thriller. I wrote that for him at Dutton. And then he said, “Oh, I want to buy A Scatter of Light, along with Last Night at the Telegraph Club.” We ended up doing Telegraph Club first because it seemed like it was the right book to do at the time, and it took me four years. And in the course of writing Telegraph Club, I realized some things that I then put into A Scatter of Light.
That just sounds incredible, especially focusing on 2013 as a specific moment. What a really, really fascinating point to revisit.
Yes. It was quite a year for the gay rights!
And, coming out next fall, that’s going to be on the cusp of the 10-year anniversary. We don’t always think of 2013 as being historical, but inhabiting those details is going to be fascinating from a queer history and politics point of view. I’m definitely looking forward to that, and I’m always trying to find more wonderful books to love — what books do you recommend?
So I don’t think, until this year, there have been two YA books about queer Chinese American girls. But this year, in addition to mine, there was the other National Book Award finalist, Shing Yin Khor’s graphic novel, The Legend of Auntie Po, which is about a queer Chinese American girl in 1880s Oregon or something. It’s a wonderful graphic novel. And I highly recommend that. The art is beautiful. And if you want a recommendation for a young adult, there is a fantasy duology that I absolutely loved by Marie Rutkoski. The first is called The Midnight Lie, and the second one is called The Hollow Heart. Marie writes so beautifully about lying, and it’s set in this fantasy world that is wonderful and hard to describe. There’s also a very sexy thief in it. And they have a wonderful romantic relationship. It’s also a good crossover; the characters are in their late teens and early twenties, I think. So it’s kind of that age range. It was super romantic and completely thrilling. And you need both books because as soon as you finish book one, you’re like, “What happens?”
My last question is a big one. I’m taking inspiration here from Tuck Woodstock, an incredible interviewer who runs the Gender Reveal podcast. In your ideal world, what would the future of queer, and specifically F/F fiction, look like?
Oh, wow. I think it would look bigger, with more different kinds of stories in it. A lot of people want happy stories. I want that, but I also am a big fan of murder and I would like some crime fiction! I would like some more state in the world stories, I would like some more historical novels. I think there has been an explosion in LGBT YA with many more F/F stories. But that hasn’t necessarily shifted over to adult fiction. And I would like adult fiction to do that too. I just want more of us. I want it to be bigger and I want us to have all the feelings, good and bad.
Malinda Lo Won a National Book Award for “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” — And I Yelled
Feature image via Malinda Lo’s Instagram
I’m always keeping an eye out for LGBTQ+ novels in the running for major literary awards, and last night’s National Book Awards felt like my gay nerd Super Bowl. When Malinda Lo won a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature last night, I yelled.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club is the first YA book with a queer woman as the protagonist to win a National Book Award for Young Peoples Literature. Kacen Callender’s acclaimed middle grade novel King and the Dragonflies — which featured a queer Black boy as a main character — won the award last year, and several others have been named as finalists. Lo’s win last night is a landmark achievement made even more significant by the fact that Last Night at the Telegraph Club tells the story of a queer Chinese girl in the 1950s, confronting homophobia, racism, and McCarthy-era fearmongering in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
If I tried to list all the praise Last Night at the Telegraph Club has garnered, we’d be here until next year’s National Book Awards, but I always can tell a book’s going to be good when it’s blurbed by Sarah Waters, high priestess of gay historical fiction. Waters doesn’t just praise the book; she gushes, calling the book “restrained yet luscious” and going on to say that it’s “a lovely, memorable novel about listening to the whispers of a wayward heart and claiming a place in the world.” Also in the chorus of acclaim is YA phenomenon Casey McQuiston, author of this summer’s runaway success One Last Stop and Red, White, and Royal Blue. “Lo’s writing is so rich,” they say, “you can practically feel the glow of neon bar lights radiating off the page.”
Self-discovery and coming of age amidst lesbian pulp novels and dyke bars? Sign me up. This book felt like it was made in a lab just for me — and, I suppose, the 13,000+ other people who have rated the book on Goodreads. It’s no understatement to say that Last Night at the Telegraph Club has been a force in this year’s YA offerings. The book is already in its seventh printing, despite all the supply chain grumbling. This National Book Award win, however, cements it as a classic and plants a flag for queer YA everywhere.
Even as the floodgates finally seem to open for LGBTQ+ YA novels, books about queer girls and sapphic romance remain less common than their male counterparts — Lo herself has compiled the data on The Invisible Lesbian in Young Adult Fiction showing that when awards like the Stonewall and Lambda seek to recognize each year’s cohort of specifically queer YA, m/m predominates. It’s a big deal for an f/f novel to win on an LGBTQ playing field; for an f/f novel (especially one both by and about a woman of color!) to win on an industry-wide, national level is astronomical.
This National Book Award also comes at a particularly crucial moment for LGBTQ+ YA as a genre — as Lo noted in her touching acceptance speech, “the opposition to our stories has also grown. This year, schools across the country are facing significant right-wing pressure to remove books about people of color, LGBTQ people, and especially transgender people from classrooms and libraries… Don’t let them erase us.”
Lo posted her acceptance speech to Twitter, and you can watch it below (starts at 1:16:55).
I’ve loved this book since its cover reveal and excerpt here on Autostraddle last summer — I’m a simple girl, and emotionally-charged encounters with lesbian pulp novels get me every time. If you’ve been looking for a good follow-up to One Last Stop, or if you’re in the mood for Carol-meets-The Lesbian Bar Project with a POC’s perspective, clear your schedule. You can buy your copy of Last Night at the Telegraph Club here.
8 Queer YA Novels With Coming of Age Hope to Relive Alice Wu’s “The Half of It”
Did you, like everyone else, love The Half Of It? So did this Autostraddle A+ member, who sent in this month’s Ask Your Friendly Neighborhood Lesbrarian request:
Ahoy ahoy! I have just watched The Half of It and am all heart eyes now. I now have a burning need to read books like this movie. Or at least with similar vibes. Perhaps where the girl gets the girl before the end? Do y’all have any recommendations to satisfy my book cravings? Also. you guys rock!
There are only so many times you can rewatch The Half Of It, and that’s where books come in. I’ve picked eight wonderful queer YA novels with themes similar to Alice Wu’s movie: falling in love through letter writing, figuring out your queer identity, keeping secrets, new friendships, small towns, and slowly getting to new your new girl crush. Ideally, the books feature at least two of these themes! They also have similar moods to The Half Of It: hopeful, but pragmatic; generous but honest; sweet but not saccharine.
It’s Not Like It’s a Secret by Misa Suiguira
This underrated YA stars 16-year-old Sana Kiyohara, an achingly realistic lesbian teen. She and the other teen characters are refreshingly messy and make lots of mistakes. Sana’s story begins when her family moves to California. There, Sana hopes to forget her crush on her best friend and her suspicions that her dad is having an affair. But she soon meets Jamie Ramirez, a cute Latina girl whose crew Sana’s new friends don’t trust. Then there’s Sana’s new friend Caleb, who seems to have romantic feelings for Sana, and the fact that her dad’s cheating is more and more obvious. Suiguira excels at portraying a nuanced and complex look at racism, particularly the dynamics between different racialized groups in a high school setting. Sana’s journey to learn to stop lying and hiding from the problems in her life is almost too real. Plus: queer girls of color romance!
Late to the Party by Kelly Quindlen
Codi Teller is literally and figuratively late to the party when this YA contemporary opens. Codi, JaKory, and Maritza (lesbian, gay, and bi respectively) are homebody BFFS who stay at home and watch Netflix. When they force themselves to go to a big party, Codi ends up forming a secret friendship with a closeted popular jock, Ricky, after she accidentally sees him making out with a guy. Through him she meets a girl who just might like her back. She also tries new things, puts herself out there, and finally has the kind of teenage adventures she thought she might never have. The only problem? She never tells JaKory and Maritza about her new social life. Late to the Party features beautifully complex relationships, bright sparks of poignant writing, and layered subplots for the supporting characters.
I Kissed Alice by Anna Birch
If you liked how Ellie and Aster got to know each other while writing each other, you’ll love how enemies Rhodes and Iliana fall in love. At their Southern arts school, they are fierce competitors for the Capstone scholarship. Rhodes has a reputation for being naturally gifted, but she’s experiencing creative block. Iliana is known for her tireless work ethic. Both of them escape from the pressures at school by spending time on a fanfic website. In fact, their digital avatars are unknowingly working together on a graphic novel. As they communicate online, they realize they like each other. A lot. But of course, “I-Kissed-Alice” and “Curious-in-Cheshire” have no idea that they know — and hate — each other in real life. What will happen when they discover the truth? This one features lesbian and bisexual representation!
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
Liz Lighty is planning to get out of her small town in Indiana by fleeing to Pennington college, helped by financial aid. There she won’t feel like Black, poor, awkward girl. But when the money she’s counting on falls through, she’s forced to consider other options. Like the scholarships available to prom king and queen in her prom-obsessed school. She’s committed enough to her university plan to confront her fear of the spotlight. Once she enters the race, she finds out it isn’t all bad. There’s this new girl, Mack, that Liz slowly starts to get to know. Mack is also an outsider like Liz, as well as smart and cute. But Mack is running for queen too. How can Liz balance her growing crush on the competition with her drive to make it to Pennington by any means necessary? You Should See Me in a Crown features cute supportive Black family, lots of humor, character growth, and adorable romance.
Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas
Not only is this story involving secrets set in a small town like The Half Of It, it also features a guy-girl teen friendship (although, happily, in this case they are both queer). Kalyn Spence and Gus Peake are unlikely friends, although even they don’t know how unlikely. Kalyn has returned to school in her small Kentucky hometown under a pseudonym, because of a murder her dad was convicted of when he was a teenager. Gus is sick and tired of being known only as the kid with cerebral palsy or the kid whose dad was killed … by Kalyn’s dad. But their burgeoning deep friendship is challenged when their respective families’ histories come to light and the teens begin to question the truth of what happened so many years ago. The heart of this character-driven story is the friendship.
Final Draft by Riley Redgate
Like Ellie, the protagonist Laila of Final Draft is a bit too smart for her own good. Also like Ellie, Laila is a gifted writer—although in Laila’s case, she writes science fiction. One day, Laila’s world of careful control is turned upside down when her mentor and creative writing teacher is in a horrible accident. His replacement is an impossibly cool award winning author. Laila is desperate to impress her. As Laila forms new connections and move outside of her comfort zone at the behest of her new idol, she explores her pansexuality, mental health, and complicated relationships with friends. Laila’s Ecuadorian heritage also plays a significant role in her coming-of-age story. And, of course, there is a girl-girl romance, with two girls of color!
Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown
More small town secrets and romance! When Joanna Gordon’s family moves from Atlanta to a small conservative town, her radio evangelist dad asks her to “lie low” on her queerness for a while. In other words: go back in the closet for senior year. Joanna reluctantly agrees. Joanna is used to being out as a lesbian, but she also can’t deny she feels a bit of a relief and comfort in the privilege of fitting in as a straight girl. Enter Mary Carlson, a cute girl and sister of one of Joanna’s new friends. Jo just might be falling for her, and Mary just might be interested back. But Jo couldn’t possibly break her promise to her dad, right? Brown tackles topics of Christianity, being closeted / coming out, and privilege with nuance. A great book for readers looking for queer teen Christian representation!
You Don’t Live Here by Robyn Schneider
After the death of her mom in an earthquake and her dad’s abandonment, Sasha Bloom moves in with her estranged grandparents in Southern California. These grandparents have firm ideas on who Sasha should be, with suggestions for her ideal weight (ten pound lighter), future career (lawyer), and current boyfriend (Cole Edwards). Cole himself is also convinced Sasha should be his girlfriend. Sasha tries to be the person everyone else wants her to be. But she ends up shoving down her love of photography, grief about her mother’s death, and her growing romantic feelings for a girl named Lily Chen. If Sasha follows Lily off to explore what life is like off the path being laid in front her, what will she find? If you like Gilmore Girls, but wished Rory was a shy bi girl — this is the book for you!
Did you love The Half Of It too? What books would you recommend that remind you of the movie? And don’t forget to keep those lesbrarian questions coming! Comment below or send me an email to stepaniukcasey [at] gmail.com.