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.

After the Moment

Garret Freymann-Weyr, May 2009.

"'Just leave the kid alone,' Leigh said. 'And then we have no problem.' ...

"'Fine,' Oliver said. 'You can have your little faggot.'

"And Leigh laughed, all of his thoughts and fears sliding away.

"'That's the best you got?' he asked. 'You can't do any better than calling him a faggot?'

"'Oh, I'm sorry, did I insult you?' Oliver asked. 'I didn't know you were one. No offense.'

"'No one cares,' Leigh said. 'That's like the lamest insult.'

"This was not actually true, as Leigh knew. Yes, at his old school, everyone was very careful to use it as a joke and never at a kid who was suspected of being gay, but that was precisely because the word carried a power far beyond its meaning.

"But knowing that he liked girls and being big enough to knock someone out gave Leigh the rare privilege of being able to laugh when the word was turned in his direction.

"The bell rang.

"'Nice meeting you,' Leigh said, letting Millie pull him toward the building. He called over his shoulder, 'Next time I'll try not to be such a fag.' ...

"It became clear that in facting down Oliver Lexham and his gang, Leigh had become a hero of sorts. Franklin had to tell the story countless times, and in the hallways, as well as on different sports teams, people could be heard telling each other, by way of apology or excuse, Next time, I'll try not to be such a fag."

That's the only gay content in After the Moment, but it's pretty great, isn't it?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Fat Hoochie Prom Queen

Nico Medina, May 2008. Madge Diaz is a fat and fabulous high school senior with a mission: to make sure her skinny, popular rival, Bridget Benson, isn’t prom queen – no matter what. Madge and Bridget have been enemies since Bridget beat out Madge for a children’s TV role, and growing up hasn’t stopped them from sniping at one another whenever they get the chance. Madge teams up with her best friend Lucas to bring Bridget down, first by running against her for prom queen, and then by organizing a huge and lavish anti-prom party. The Bridget battle is set against a backdrop of Lucas’s boy problems, Madge’s mom problems (she’ll only prepare diet meals), and the discovery that perfect Bridget has some serious problems of her own. And hallelujah! the book doesn’t end with Madge losing weight; she succeeds without ever apologizing for her plus-size pants.

The characters use alcohol, drugs, and the F-word with a frequency not unrealistic among high school students, but which might give some pause to more conservative parents. Gay culture is celebrated throughout the book, but sex scenes are not graphic, happening mainly offscreen. Although the book’s chaos is part of its charm, there are a few too many plot threads to keep track of: for example, a story involving Madge’s fashion-designer sister is dropped abruptly. However, Fat Hoochie Prom Queen is a worthwhile purchase; it’s a romp of a read that will fly off YA shelves.

The Last Exit to Normal

Michael Harmon, March 2008. Ben is fourteen when his mom walks out after his father announces that he's gay. Ben goes downhill from there: "I took my first hit from a bong two weeks after my mom left. I got plastered at a kegger a week later, dropped a tab of acid the next month, and got busted for defacing public property three days after that. I was on a roll, and I was just getting going." After a couple of years of this behavior, including Ben's arrest for driving the escape car after his friends steal beer from a store, Ben and his dads move to eastern Montana. The idea is that country life will save Ben from the "negative influence" he's getting in the city.

Rough Butte, Montana, is quite different from what Ben is used to...not least because of his uber-strict step-grandmother, who hits him with a wooden spoon whenever he swears - including words like "crap" that he's used to thinking of as pretty innocuous. But the real problem is their next-door neighbor, Mr. Hinks, who makes no secret of his homophobia, but does a better job of hiding his abuse of his eleven-year-old son. Ben takes on these problems and a full-time schedule of farmwork while also pursuing The Girl. These events, and the humor and warmth with which they're told, make for a compelling, fast-paced novel that doesn't skimp on character development and has less gay content than it appears at first. Recommended as a fish-out-of-water story, a coming-of-age tale, and of course, a book about how to deal (and how not to deal) with a gay parent.

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.

After Tupac & D. Foster

Jacqueline Woodson, January 2008. This excellent middle-grade novel follows the lives of the unnamed narrator and her two best friends, Neeka and D. The narrator lives across the street from Neeka and has known her since they were toddlers, but D is new in their lives. She has a mysterious past and a totally unknown present; Neeka and the narrator don't even know where she lives. She shows up on the bus at random hours, whereas N & N aren't even allowed off their block. The three girls listen to Tupac Shakur's music, relating it to their own lives as much as they can, and follow his history of assaults and hospital stays until the day of his death.

A subplot follows Neeka's brother Tash, in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Tash is introduced to the reader as "a queen" and "a sissy from day one and most people just accepted it." Despite these derogatory terms, Tash is presented as a strong and sympathetic character, on the girls' side when the world is against them. His mother only reluctantly accepts his sexual preference, disliking it when he calls himself "a sister" or acts "sissyish" around his little brothers, but ultimately she admits, when Tash asks whether he's good enough for her, "You know you are, baby. You know you are."