Ash

Malinda Lo, September 2009. Twelve-year-old Ash has grown up listening to fairy tales and experiencing medical care provided by greenwitches rather than doctors, so she's surprised but not shocked when her late-night wanderings in the forest lead her to fairyland. She welcomes the escape; after her father's recent death, she's been forced to work as a housekeeper and ladies' maid for her new stepmother and two stepsisters.

Ash falls in love with a scary and elusive fairy-boy named Sidhean who is cursed to love her, and she feels herself losing control the more time she spends with him in the woods. But the same paths that lead her to fairyland also bring her to Kaisa, huntress for the king, who belongs to Ash's own world. Ash's attraction to Kaisa competes with her longing for fairyland, but she doesn't feel compelled to choose between them. Nor does she feel that one attraction is wrong, as in many coming-out tales. The twist comes when Ash, in order to meet Kaisa at a ball, must ask for Sidhean's help. In return, he asks that she become completely his, leaving her in a bind between her lovers.

The tale is set against a rich backdrop of ballgowns and class struggles, minor characters that stick with the reader (I hope there's a sequel focusing on Gwen), and the delicate balance between fairyland and real life. The love story is both vivid and subtle, and the fact that each character would survive without her partner removes this from the romance genre, although it will still appeal to readers of same. In fact, this not-romance, not-realistic, not-quite-fantasy novel will probably appeal to nearly all of your teen girls. Highly recommended. And now I'm the first and last reviewer to not mention Cinderella...oops.

Secrets of Truth and Beauty

Megan Frazer, July 2009. Dara's family life seems pretty normal - sure, her mom is strict, but whatever - until she finds a folder of family birth certificates and realizes she has an older sister, Rachel. When she confronts her parents, they admit Rachel ran away before Dara was born and that they have no relationship with her.

Dara was crowned Little Miss Maine when she was a kid, but now she's seventeen and significantly overweight. She plans her junior autobiography project around this theme, but parts of it are taken out of context by her teacher and counselor, so her furious parents pull her out of school. Dara rebels by going off to live with Rachel on her Massachusetts dairy farm. While there, Dara finds out some family secrets (hint: the farm is historically a refuge for gay kids whose parents kick them out) and makes some new friends, including Owen (gay!) and his brother (not gay! likes Dara!).

Summarizing this plot in these few words makes it recognizable as your basic coming-of-age story, and it is - but it's extremely well done. Plot threads like the out-of-order diary pages Dara finds in a closet interweave with tales of Rachel's love life, domestic scenes of the "family" cooking dinner together, and Dara's eventual decision to enter a local beauty pageant. Such peripheral characters as silent, elderly matriarch Belinda and Dara's kindly and undersung father contribute to a novel more complex than it might seem initially. Perhaps the best detail is Dara's commitment to fashion despite her size; she and Owen are always creating spectactular outfits that would delight the members of fatshionista. Highly recommended for all public, middle and high school libraries.

Candy Everybody Wants

Josh Kilmer-Purcell, 2008. In case the shiny silver color with hot-pink lettering doesn't give it away, this book is one big gay party. In the opening scene, fourteen-year-old Jayson is shooting his Dallas/Dynasty crossover (that'd be Dallasty), starring himself as the female lead - as good a plan as any to make out with the cute neighbor boy he's cast opposite. Jayson has never been kissed, although he's quite comfortable with his identity, having "decided that he was homosexual while watching a Phil Donahue episode on the topic eight years earlier. He'd come home early from kindergarten that day because he'd gotten a stomach ache from wondering whether his Hee Haw overalls were too outré for his peers. Jayson had been sent home from school fairly often over the years, including the first day of kindergarten when he'd become inconsolably agitated that the school wouldn't change their spelling of his name from 'Jason' to 'Jayson.' He felt very strongly that he needed the extra flair to set himself apart from the other, obviously less special Jasons in the class."

Jayson's home life is somewhat chaotic; he doesn't know who his father is, his younger brother suffers from Prader-Willi syndrome, and his mom has been married eleven times. After kicking out her latest live-in boyfriend, she announces to Jayson that his father is an old movie star, Oscar Harlande, and that Jayson will be visiting him. Tomorrow. By himself. When Jayson shows up on Oscar's doorstep, he learns that Oscar, who runs an escort service for older gay men interested in sleeping with young Broadway talent, has no idea who Jayson is. Moreover, Jayson's long-time celebrity crush just happens to be living in the house.

The plot only grows more far-fetched from there, but it contributes to the soap-operatically gay smorgasbord that is Candy Everybody Wants. Recommended especially for fans of How I Got into College, Freak Show, and other big gay carnivals of teen fiction.

My Invented Life

Lauren Bjorkman, October 2009. "I wish my coming out had been real so I could write about it online!" exclaims high school junior Roz after reading some stories about the newly uncloseted. Roz has a lot going on: her sister Eva, who used to be her best friend, is ignoring her....and she thinks Eva might be gay. Eva does have a boyfriend, Bryan, but he keeps flirting with Roz. Roz, in turn, flirts with Jonathan, who turns out to be actually gay. Then there's Carmen, bitchy genius and surprisingly good theatrical director, and Nico, whom no one can quite figure out. Eyeliner Andie, who describes herself as "no-sexual," rounds out the ensemble of teens putting on a production of As You Like It. The book tells the story of their complicated-to-the-point-of-farcical love lives as Roz pretends to be gay in order to find out if Eva is, and then has to figure out how to get a boyfriend despite pretending to like girls, and then has to deal with the possibility that she does indeed like girls. This is complicated by her role as Rosalind in the school play, for which she has to dress as a woman dressing like a man. Roz is not only the narrator, but the stereotypical fool who is the last one to figure out what's going on. She's always wailing, "But I don't understand!" as the other characters roll their eyes knowingly. This use of the protagonist serves both as an effective plot device and a smart parody of same.

Imagine if Paula Danziger had written a Basic Eight/Twelfth Night fanfic with help from the writers of Three's Company; that will give you an idea of the red herrings, misunderstandings, gender-bending, secret-keeping, and unreliable narration that make this book the intriguing chaos that it is. My favorite gay YA read of the year. Highly recommended.

Big Guy

Robin Stevenson, March 2008. This 106-page novel from Orca Soundings, an imprint for high interest/low level books for teens, is packed with issues. Derek's mom has abandoned the family; his homophobic father doesn't know he's gay; he's dropped out of high school; he's gained eighty pounds in the past year and his online boyfriend doesn't know it; and he's not sure how he feels about his job as a home health aide for Aaliyah, a defensive young woman in a wheelchair. Despite this smorgasbord of problems, the story resolves neatly without being cheesy. Derek's dad turns out to have a human side (barely); his boyfriend doesn't mind that he's fat; and he learns Valuable Lessons from Aaliyah. Recommended where other Orca titles are popular as well as in outreach settings.

Gravity

Leanne Lieberman, October 2008. This is not the average teen novel in which the author strives to make the characters as accessible as possible; nor does Lieberman create a fantasy-novel sense of otherworldly place. The author's debut novel is heavy with the language and rites of Orthodox Judaism, even including a five-page glossary of Yiddish terms in the back of the book. Narrator Ellie Gold, a devoutly religious high school sophomore, keeps kosher, blesses every meal, and won't turn on a light switch on the Sabbath. She wears skirts below the knee and beige full-coverage bras because she wants to, as opposed to her sister Neshama, who resents that their father requires this type of clothing.

The book begins with the family splitting up for the summer. While Ellie's parents go to Israel and Neshama is off to summer camp, Ellie spends the summer with her ex-Jewish grandmother Bubbie, still keeping kosher but getting more comfortable in a two-piece bathing suit. It's at Bubbie's cabin that Ellie meets Lindsay, the kind of girl she has never gotten to know at her religious school: flirty, saucy, wearing a string bikini and willing to whip it off for skinny-dipping in the lake. The two girls start flirting, and this is where we see the complexity of Ellie's character: she's sweetly dorky when she gets nervous and ends up babbling about biology. Lindsay is less complicated, bragging about the boys she's kissed. The girls rekindle their friendship back in the city, and begin a sexual relationship that feels wrong to Ellie for more reasons than her Judaism; she suspects that Lindsay is just using her, whereas for Ellie, this is everything. The sex scenes are short but hot; the subplot about Mrs. Gold's breakdown is curiously feminist without being obvious; and the contrast between the sisters is appealing. Recommended.

Down to the Bone

Mayra Lazara Dole, February 2008. Protagonist Laura doesn't identify as lesbian (or tortillera, the taunt preferred by homophobes in her Miami neighborhood), but she is in love with Marlena - she knows that for sure. When she's kicked out of her Catholic high school after a teacher discovers their love notes, and then kicked out of her home when her mom can't deal, Laura moves in with her friend Soli and her open-minded mami. Marlena quickly abandons Laura for Jesus and a Cubano husband, and Laura won't come out even to other dykes, so she's lonely for a while. In quick succession, she befriends a boi, dates a boy, gets roofied at a gay club, is held up at knifepoint by a homophobe, comes clean to her friends, and begins dating a beautiful waitress. Is this too much plot for one YA novel? Yes, but it's a big messy commotion of a book in the first place, so the drama works. Recommend to readers who liked Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico and The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez as well as your gay teens.

M+O 4EVR

Tonya Cherie Hegamin, April 2008. This first novel, poetic and daunting, tells the story of O(pal) and M(arianne), best friends in a small Pennsylvania town. They're inseparable as children, but part ways when they go off to high school, where M becomes a dissembler and O a dissenter. M forgets the kisses the girls shared under a blackberry bush in order to try out for cheerleading and become the county's first black homecoming queen, while O is a scholar who throws up emotional walls that block any other friendships from forming. Near the beginning of the book, M's body is found in a ravine, leaving O friendless and unsure of her future. Intertwined with the girls' story is the tale of Hannah, a runaway slave whose ghost appears as a warning to M. The veil Hegamin drapes between the reader and the narrator leaves this one too complex for younger and reluctant readers, but excellent for older teens and college students.

Love and Lies: Marisol's Story

Ellen Wittlinger, July 2008. Readers of Wittlinger's acclaimed Hard Love (1999) will rejoice in this new novel about Marisol, the touchy punk-rock lesbian with whom protagonist Gio fell in unrequited love. Love and Lies features a cast of gay characters including Birdie, Marisol's flamboyant roommate; Lee, small-town baby dyke with a crush on Marisol; and Olivia, Marisol's beautiful and talented writing teacher. As is typical of gaytopia novels, the action revolves around a romance rather than the coming-out process. In this case, our heroine falls for Olivia, who seems too good to be true; she showers Marisol with gifts and praises her writing, calling her "the star of my class." It turns out, of course, that Olivia is not all that she seems. The main story is set against subplots involving Birdie's neurotic boyfriend and a road trip to Provincetown. Great romance with depth and personalty.

Say the Word

Jeanine Garsee, March 2009. In this family problem novel, Shawna's mom just passed away, but Shawna didn't really know her very well. Mom left the family years ago to move in with her female lover, and Shawna has resented her ever since. The funeral is a train wreck - Shawna's controlling father and conninving aunt are rude to the lesbian-mom half of the family, while Shawn's stepbrother's eulogy outs the lesbians to those few who don't already know - and the weeks afterward don't get any better for Shawna as she struggles with her feelings toward each of her parents. The book traces Shawna's path toward acceptance of her mom's half of the family and uncovers some secrets which the reader will have probably figured out before Shawna -- that her best friend is also interested in girls, for example. Recommended for teens struggling with parental issues, whether they're related to sexuality or not.

My Tiki Girl

Jennifer McMahon, May 2008. Traditional YA lesbian problem novels tell the stories of teen girls who fall madly in love with their female friends, only to face serious consequences when parents and classmates find out. In recent years, however, the trend is toward books featuring protagonists whose sexuality is only one aspect of their complicated lives.

Despite its 2008 copyright, My Tiki Girl is a reversion to the problem novel. Its heroine, Maggie, was pretty and popular until the car accident that killed her mother. Now she wears a leg brace and feels like an outcast until new girl Dahlia asks her to join her rock band. Maggie develops a crush; Dahlia reciprocates; and the two have a secret and joyous relationship until Dahlia’s mother walks in on them half-dressed.

Until this point, My Tiki Girl, while formulaic, is charming and different. It features appealing secondary characters like Dahlia’s younger brother Jonah, who believes he is a wizard, and funny portrayals of teens smoking clove cigarettes and obsessing about Sylvia Plath. But when the girls’ secret is discovered by Leah, Dahlia’s mother, the plot takes some bizarre turns. Leah has been portrayed throughout the book as a cool hippie mom who shoplifts with the girls and creates doll alter-egos for them. Her reaction to the girls’ love affair (“Abomination! Pervert!”) is, then, wildly out of character. It doesn’t get better from there: the last chapters of the book involve a car accident that too obviously parallels the one in which Maggie’s mother was killed as well as a makeout session between Maggie and Joey, a brain-damaged boy who lives in a cave. Recommended only for libraries where authors like Nancy Garden and Julie Anne Peters are popular.