Evermore

Alyson Noël, February 2009. When sixteen-year-old Ever lost her parents, sister, and dog in a car accident, she survived, but since then she's had the ability to read people's minds just by being near them. She tries to cloud this power by wearing hoodies, listening to her iPod constantly, and avoiding touching anyone, but all of this makes her a social outcast. Her only two friends are Haven, an attention-seeking scene jumper, and Miles, constantly looking for love anywhere he can.

The rest of Ever's story, in a nutshell: she meets and falls in love with new student Damen, who is gorgeous and mysterious (he disappears a lot) and super-smart and super-strong and hardly ever eats, though he does drink an odd red liquid from vials....but he's not a vampire! NOT.A.VAMPIRE, NO SIR! No, he's...an immortal! Yes, and that is how this book distinguishes itself from the Twilight series. That, and the second book is called Blue Moon, not New Moon.

But Miles is the reason you're here, because he is the Gay Sidekick. He's not an especially complex character - he's the nice guy, in search of love or at least a date. He gets the lead in Hairspray, which is unexpected and funny. He's always texting his newest potential boyfriend. He tries to resolve the issues that arise between Ever and Haven.

I mock, but I did really enjoy the book. Recommended for all your vampire immortal-loving teens, especially the gay ones.

In Mike We Trust

P.E. Ryan, February 2009. Protagonist Garth came out to his best (female) friend recently, and then made the mistake of telling his mom. She insisted he not tell anyone else, claiming worry over potential run-ins with violent homophobes. Enter Mike, the twin brother of Garth's deceased father. He's not gay, but is ultra-supportive, taking Garth to a gay bookstore and setting him up on a date with a cute boy. Soon, however, Mike entices Garth to help him with phony charity schemes, Mike's only source of income. The author does a good job at making sure Mike and Garth are neither heroes nor villains. There's a great deal of moral ambiguity here, but none of it revolves around sex or sexuality. Garth doesn't really have a hard time dealing with being gay; he's more worried about his mom's reaction than his own identity. Mom's abrupt turnaround at the end is not realistic, but fans of Garth will be glad to see it anyway.

Project Sweet Life

Brent Hartinger, February 2009. Dave, Curtis, and Victor are fifteen years old and, they feel, exempt from having to get summer jobs; unfortunately, their fathers disagree. How can the boys manage to have the awesome summer they've planned while working at the same time? This conundrum launches Project Sweet Life, their plan to make a whole summer's worth of income in one fell swoop. They start out simple: have a garage sale, selling everything they own that has a market value. When that backfires, they try to win reward money for catching a bank robber. This also doesn't go well, so they decide to find hidden treasure...and so on, throughout the summer, until they've logged more hours on these schemes than they would have at their fictional jobs lifeguarding, mowing lawns, and frying chicken.


Hartinger is known for his sensitive, funny portrayals of gay teens in Geography Club and Order of the Poison Oak, but there isn't a lot of homo action in Project Sweet Life. This is a new type of gay novel altogether, where the gay characters - Dave's uncle and his "friend" - are in the background, assisting the boys with the least illegal of their plots, and the word "gay" isn't even mentioned. That makes this a good pick for a conservative community and for middle-schoolers. Recommended for all public and school libraries.

Absolutely Maybe

Lisa Yee, February 2009. Yee, the author of an excellent middle-grade trilogy that recounts the same events from three different points of view, takes her first foray into YA with Absolutely Maybe. Eighteen-year-old protagonist Maybe (christened Maybelline after her mother's favorite line of makeup) flees from Florida to LA after high school partly in search of her absentee father, but mostly to escape her self-centered mother and Mom's abusive husband.

Traveling with Maybe are her friends Hollywood, an aspiring filmmaker enrolled at UCLA, and Ted, the reason this book is reviewed here. Ted, a short, funny Thai boy who's very close to his adoptive parents, quickly finds work as the personal assistant to an aging diva. Ted's presentation is rather fabulous, raising my gaydar early on, but I decided it was my imagination. After all, the book jacket and subject headings don't address homosexuality, and neither does the author's earlier work. It's not until page 272 (of 273) that Maybe and I learn the truth.

This isn't the gayest book you'll ever read, but Ted and his friends are strong, appealing characters, and the story is an intriguing one. Recommended, especially in communities where you can't buy most of what I review.