LGBTIQA - New YA Novels

 Diversity in sexual identity is currently a hot button issue and reflective of this is the growing body of young adult literature that focuses on characters who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning or asexual (LGBTIQA). This month I will recommend three books that tackle one or more of these issues.  Malinda Lo's Last Night at the Telegraph Club, which focuses on a lesbian Asian/American teen in 1950s San Francisco, is the 2021 National Book Award Winner, as well as the winner of the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature,  a Michael L. Printz Honor Book and a Walter Dean Myers Honor Book.  The One True Me and You by Remi K. England finds a fan/fic writer and a beauty pageant contestant crossing paths and falling for each other at a Florida hotel which is hosting a fan convention and the Miss Cosmic USA contest the same weekend. Year on Fire by Julie Buxbaum introduces several prep school teens who are navigating family and friendship issues, while a mysterious arsonist is setting fires at their school. 

Last Night at the Telegraph Club is set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1950s. 17-year-old Lily Hu struggles to fit into her school and community.  She longs to work at the Jet Propulsion lab where her aunt works and is slowly recognizing she is attracted to women. When she and Kath, a classmate whose goal is to fly airplanes, connect over an ad for a male impersonator at the lesbian Telegraph Club, her life changes forever.  They sneak out and enjoy the scene at the club, as well as their growing attraction to each other. Fearing her family's disapproval and the very real danger of McCarthyism and the Lavender Scare, Lily struggles to reconcile her identity as a Chinese American and a lesbian in a time fraught with danger for both. The author's notes are a novella in and of themselves.  Lo (Ash) explains how Lily's family situation mirrors her own and provides an extensive bibliography and a section on "Lesbians, Gender, and Community." This beautifully written exploration of first love certainly deserves all the accolades it received. 

In The One True Me and You Kay, a fanfic writer attending the GreatCon fan convention, and Teagan, a contestant in the Miss Cosmic USA pageant, arrive at the same Florida hotel for the weekend.  Kay is hoping to win a writing contest, begin using they/them pronouns, and work up the courage to kiss a girl.  Teagan is hoping to win the pageant so she can pay for college and finally come out as a lesbian.  When Teagan sneaks out after curfew to attend the convention, their paths cross and they feel an instant attraction.  As they begin text flirtations and secret hangouts, they realize they have a lot in common, including a mutual enemy, Miss North Carolina who goes to school with Kay and competes against Teagan. The novel explores the confusion and alienation each feels, although the fan/fic culture is much more accepting of queerness than the pageant world.  Teagan and Kay are very relatable as they experience first love and attempt to find themselves in the process.

Year on Fire introduces twins Imogene and Archer Gibson and alpha-girl Paige Cohen-Chen who are an inseparable trio. The twins' loyalty to her and each other is tested when Archie kisses Paige's boyfriend Jackson and Immie claims responsibility to hide his homosexuality from their abusive father. This strains her friendship with Paige, so when Rohan Singh, a charming British teen, transfers to their school and Paige calls "dibs" on him, Immie ignores the growing attraction between her and Rohan.  Rohan, whose parents have separated after his father's infidelity, has been forced to move with him to LA.  He is angry and homesick, but his crush on Immie keeps him grounded.  Meanwhile Archie and Jackson dance around their feelings for each other, as Archie struggles to come out of the closet and Jackson anticipates his father's fifth wedding.  Paige, the classic neglected rich girl, strives for perfection in an attempt to gain the attention of her parents, who are never home. When the girls' restroom at school is set on fire, pretty much everyone is under suspicion. This romantic soap opera explores a variety of attractions, as well as family dysfunction, as the mysterious arsonist continues to set fires.  Although the identity of the arsonist is of interest,  the teens' personal dramas are much more engaging in this surefire winner from Julie Buxbaum. (Admission)

High School Seniors plan for the future: Admission, Charming a a Verb, and Today, Tonight, Tomorrow

Senior year is fraught with drama and much of it stems from making a decision about one's future.  As December early decision announcements approach, students who applied are anxiously awaiting answers from their college of choice. Others are second guessing their decisions or still struggling with applications that will soon be due. Parents' expectations and dreams also play into the anxieties students experience. Three new young adult novels explore some of the issues students face in this dog-eat-dog world of competing for available college space.  Julie Buxbaum's Admission focuses on what parents will do to advance their children's opportunities.  Ben Phillipe's Charming as a Verb examines a young man's temptations in trying to get an advantage in being accepted by his "reach" school.  In Rachel Lynn Solomon's Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, two students who have been rivals throughout high school compete for one last accolade. 

The college admission scandal that rocked the country is the subject of Buxbaum's latest novel Admission. Chloe Wynn Berringer, daughter of a Hollywood celebrity, has been accepted at the college of her dreams, even though she's pretty sure she doesn't qualify.  Then the FBI comes to arrest her mother for tampering with the admissions process and the nightmare begins.  Will Chloe be arrested as well?  What did she know and when did she know it? Is she complicit in her mother's crime? As Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman head off to prison as the result of an investigation known as Operation Varsity Blues, it is interesting to read a similar fictional story told from the student's point of view. Not wanting to disappoint her mother, Chloe willing participates in some questionable activities in the quest to get into the college of her mother's dreams. Is she guilty as well?

In Charming as a Verb a student once again struggles to please a parent.  Henri Haltiwanger, a charismatic first-generation Haitian American teen, has a dog-walking business that is self-run, even though he pretends to be working for "Uptown Updogs."  When Corinne, an awkward high-achieving African American classmate and client, discovers his secret, he agrees to help her socially in exchange for her discretion.  As they spend time together, an attraction grows. Henri, who aspires to go to Columbia to please his father, secretly hopes Corinne's  mother, a dean at Columbia, will help him get in.  Henri will do anything to achieve his father's dream, even though he's beginning to think it's not right for him. He steps over the line, taking a risk that may cost him everything, including the girl he's fallen for. 

Today, Tonight, Tomorrow introduces Rowan Roth and Neil McNair, who have been overachieving rivals throughout high school.  Rowan frequently loses out to Neil and she thinks she can't wait to go to college and get away from him.  When he is named valedictorian, she figures she has only one more opportunity to best him.  She is determined to win "Howl," a scavenger hunt for the senior class that takes the students all over Seattle.  When Rowan and Neil find out a group of seniors is out to defeat them, they team up so that they will be the last two players in the competition.  But as they cooperate to solve the clues, Rowan finds out she and Neil have a lot in common and he might just have a place in her future.  Will it change her decision about where she goes to college? As she begins second guessing her choices and weighing the pros and cons of the schools that have accepted her, Neil becomes a factor she never expected to consider. 

NYC stories: The Falconer,The Poet X, and Hope and Other Punchlines

Frequently, in novels set in NYC, the city becomes a character that enhances the story-line. This month I'm recommending three new YA novels where this is the case.  The Falconer by Dana Czapnik follows Lucy Adler, a basketball player who is passionate about the game, her unrequited crush Percy, and NYC.  The Poet X, a novel-in-verse by Elizabeth Acevedo, is about an Afro-Latino poet living in Harlem and struggling with family expectations. Hope and Other Punchlines by Julie Buxbaum takes on the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy, following "Baby Hope" who was immortalized when a photographer took a picture of her being carried out of her day care at the World Trade Center, as the first tower collapsed in the background.

In The Falconer:A Novel,  17-yer-old Lucy Adler, a smart, talented  basketball player at Pendleton Academy in NYC, calls herself a "Pizza Bagel" - an Italian, Jewish mutt.  Written from Lucy's first-person point of view, the rhythm of the story is like that of a sports commentator, which is not surprising as the author is a sports journalist.  Lucy spends a great deal of time on the basketball court playing pickup games with her best guy friend and unrequited love interest, Percy Abney, an ultra-rich boy trying to resist his blue-blood fate. She watches despondently,  as he has flings with and discards one girl after another, oblivious to Lucy's being in love with him. She also wanders NYC with her best girlfriend and teammate Alexis Feliz, waxing poetic about the city's wonders, and hangs out with her cousin Violet, a bohemian artist who lives with her girlfriend Max in Soho. Max's claim to fame is her pop-art installation of an American flag made of dildos, which was shown at the Whitney Biennial.  The girls talk endlessly about love, sexism, and art vs capitalism. Attending an Art vs Kmart demonstration, Lucy wonders, "Does art always win? If it did, the world would be a very different place."  The lyrical descriptions of NYC and the spot-on accounts of Lucy's basketball games will keep the reader eagerly turning the pages.  Even as Lucy suffers one humiliation after another, I had faith that she would ultimately land on her feet.  This coming-of-age in Manhattan story is being compared to Catcher in the Rye.

The Michael L. Printz and Pura Bellpre award winner, The Poet X, introduces Xiomara Patista, a girl living in a Dominican community in Harlem. She is frustrated by her inability to defend herself against her mother's hyper-religious demands, as well as unwanted male attention now that she has developed curves. Her twin brother Xavier, who attends a "genius school" is little support, as he is struggling with challenges of his own.  She pours her passion into her poetry, which she writes in a leather notebook.  When she and her lab partner Aman begin a sweet flirtation, she decides to skip confirmation classes, which have been dictated by her mother, to spend time sharing her poetry with him.  When her mother finds out, all hell breaks loose and Xiomara's only outlet is her poetry, writing "It almost feels like the more I bruise the page, the quicker something inside me heals."  Her English teacher prompts her to join the poetry club and enter a slam poetry competition.  Through her poetry she finds the strength to stand up to her mother and express who she really is. This novel-in-verse by an award winning slam poet also won the National Book Award and the Golden Kite Honor and is a must read for anyone who loves poetry.

Hope and Other Punchlines opens 16 years after Abbi Hope Goldstein became the poster child for hope, when she was photographed wearing a birthday crown, while escaping the collapse of the first tower at the World Trade Center. She is beginning to exhibit signs of 9/11 syndrome, including a bloody cough, which she is hiding from her parents.  She takes a job as a camp counselor a few towns away, hoping for some anonymity one last summer before she thinks she will die.  Unfortunately, a co-worker, Noah Stern, recognizes her from school and blackmails her into helping him interview other people who were in the infamous picture. One of them was his deceased father, whom he wants to learn more about.  Told from alternating points of view, the story illuminates the impact the tragedy had on survivors, as well as tells a tale of first love and resilience in the face of adversity.  Although this emotional journey is laced with quick-witted banter, the novel is ultimately a fairly serious examination of the aftermath of the infamous terrorist attack in NYC.

Quirky Teens: 36 Questions, Speed of Life, What to Say Next and Holding Up the Universe

Although the books I am recommending this month could be characterized as quirky teen relationship novels, they all involve teens who are dealing with the loss of a parent in unusual ways. 36 Questions that Changed My Mind About You by Vicky Grant weaves a story around the real life psychological study where strangers develop relationships after asking each other 36 questions designed to create intimacy. Speed of Life by advice columnist Carol Weston involves a teenage girl who begins corresponding with a teen advice columnist after the death of her mother.  What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum (Tell Me Three Things) explores the relationship between an autistic boy and a popular girl, who has just lost her father. Finally, Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Things) focuses on a girl who gains several hundred pounds after her mother's death. All of these books involve characters, who are quirky, yet sympathetic, and engaging stories that I did not want to put down.

Inspired by the 1990 psychological study "The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness," which was popularized in The New York Times, 36 Questions is the story of two strangers, Hildy and Paul (aka Betty and Bob), who show up to participate in a PhD student's experiment and collect $40 for their trouble. All they have to do is ask and answer 36 questions of each other, to see if it fosters affection between them.   However, making it to the end of the questionnaire is a major challenge for these two volatile characters.  Paul, the "bad boy" artistic loner, is only there for the money, and answers the questions in a caustic, snarky, manner.  "Good girl" Hildy's nervousness is manifested by earnest oversharing, which Paul taunts, resulting in Hildy exploding, throwing a tropical fish at him (it's complicated), and stomping out. Although they aren't supposed to know each other's true identity, Paul finds her on Facebook and messages her about meeting and finishing the experiment.  Attracted to him, but wary, she agrees to answer the questions online. By the end of the book they've laughed, cried, lied and discovered each other's secrets, but have they fallen in love? Their witty authentic dialogue, complemented by Paul's drawings, make this a fun read with serious undertones, which I highly recommend. I found myself marveling at the way the author wove the story around the study's questions and thinking about my own answers as I read. Rights for publication have already been sold in 19 countries!

Speed of Life focuses on Sofia Wolfe, who is still struggling with the death of her Spanish mother, almost a year earlier.  When teen advice columnist, "Dear Kate," speaks at a school assembly, Sofia talks her dad into attending Kate's talk for parents.  Sofia begins corresponding with Kate, who seems to be the only one she can turn to for solace.  When she finds out Dad has begun dating Kate, with whom he has rekindled a former acquaintance,  Sofia initially feels betrayed, but ultimately adjusts.  Complications ensue when Sofia goes to live with Kate and her angry daughter Alexa for the summer, and Sofia falls for Alexa's former boyfriend, Sam. Then an unexpected change in the family's dynamics creates a bond between the soon-to-be stepsisters. The struggles of changing schools, blended families, first love and grieving are dealt with sensitively by the author whose advice column "Dear Carol" appears in Girls' Life magazine.

The title of Julie Buxbaum's latest novel, What to Say Next, refers to a helpful hints notebook, David Drucker's sister has created for him. David is brilliant, but on the spectrum, and typically responds inappropriately in many social situations. The book is especially useful when popular Kit Lowell begins sitting with him at lunch, after the death of her father in a car accident.  Kit finds it difficult to reenter her high school social circle and finds David's quiet ways and blunt honesty refreshing.  As they grow closer, David's social awkwardness is further exposed when the notebook, which also contains his commentary on peers, is stolen, and many of his comments are posted on the internet.  In trying to help him navigate this disaster, Kit's own secrets are revealed, bringing their relationship to a poignant resolution.  The author uses split first person narration to give the reader insight into each character's perspective. David's insensitively direct comments are frequently hilarious, but troublesome. Kit's journey through grief and recovery makes for an interesting vehicle for this quirky love story, which I think readers will enjoy.

In Holding Up the Universe, the main character Libby Strout is known as the girl who had to be cut out of her house.  After her mother's unexpected death, Libby took solace in eating and became morbidly obese.  A medical intervention helped her go from 600 to 300 pounds, and she decides to reenter public school.  There she meets resident cool boy Jack Messelin, who is peer-pressured into bullying Libby and ends up with a bloody nose for his actions.  They end up in detention where they develop a fragile friendship.  He confides in Libby that he has prosopagnosia (face blindness) and is hiding it from the world. She encourages him to seek help and let people know that his insensitivity is frequently inadvertent, because he doesn't know who people are when he sees them. Together they navigate a new friendship, helping each other meet their problems head on.  Written in short chapters of alternating perspectives, this is a story of two understandably flawed characters, learning to love themselves, as well as each other. 

Romantic YA Reads for Summer's End: Suffer Love, Tell Me Three Things and P.S. I Like You

If teens are looking for a quick romantic read before required reading for school begins, or just an escape between loftier reads, I can recommend three new books that are a cut above.  Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake involves two teens, struggling with family problems, who meet when paired on a Shakespeare class project. Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum focuses on Jessie, a girl who is still grieving her mother's death and has to move from Chicago to L.A. when her father remarries.  She gets a little help in navigating the ins and outs of her new life from a secret email friend identifying himself as Somebody/Nobody.  In  P.S. I Like You by Kasie West, aspiring songwriter Lily also begins a secret correspondence that fuels her creativity when she finds a response to graffiti she doodled on her desk in chemistry class.

Suffer Love is a tale of star-crossed lovers, Hadley and Sam, who meet in Shakespeare class and find they are both struggling with family problems caused by a parent's infidelity. Hadley's university professor father had a year long affair with one of his students. Unbeknownst to Hadley, her dad's affair was with Sam's mother. Both Sam and Hadley are missing their respective parents who moved out when the affair was discovered, and are also dealing with the depressed parent left behind.   When Sam finds out the truth about the affair, he is afraid to tell Hadley, thinking he'll lose her. Complicating matters is Sam's fragile little sister Olivia, whom Hadley befriends. As they work on their Shakespeare project, the irony of his Shakespearean dilemma is not lost on Sam.  The plot tangles and references to Shakespearean literature make this a smart romance that readers will devour. If teachers wanted to use this in class, they could pair it with reading Much Ado about Nothing.

 Tell Me Three Things opens when Jessie, who is still grieving her mother's death, is abruptly moved from her Chicago home to the mansion of a wealthy LA widow her father met online and married. Suddenly she is trying to adjust to a new home, a stepbrother (Theo) and an elite private high school where she feels like she is swimming with sharks. When she gets an anonymous email from a boy calling himself Somebody/Nobody (SN), offering to be her "virtual spiritual guide" to navigating her new school, she reluctantly accepts his help, while wondering about her secret correspondent's identity. Is it Ethan, the cool but aloof guy in her AP English class who picks her as a study partner?  Is it Liam, the son of the owner of the bookstore where she works? Or is it Theo, who having recently lost his own father, at first treats her like a stranger at school, but slowly warms to her. As the email correspondence evolves into a game of "Tell Me Three Things," Jessie begins to get clues as to SN's identity, and at the same time begins to work through her grief, because SN is dealing with the death of a loved one, too.  The smart funny virtual conversations, filled with literary references, and the suspense as to SN's identity, as well as the sympathetic exploration of teens dealing with death, make this a compelling read that teens will love.

P.S. I Like You similarly involves a secret correspondence that blossoms into love. When aspiring songwriter Lily scribbles some indie music lyrics on her desktop in chemistry class, she is surprised to find a reply the next day. Soon she and the mystery correspondent are communicating in greater depth through notes hidden beneath the desk.  Not only does Lily enjoy getting to know him, his personal revelations seem to fuel her songwriting.  Suddenly she can't wait to get to the class she used to dread.  As she struggles to discover his identity, she crushes on Lucas, a hipster musician, and feuds with Cade, her sworn nemesis, who teases her mercilessly.  After her guitar is destroyed, ruining her chances to enter a songwriting contest, she is devastated.  Then in her role as office aide, she is sent to her pen pal's class with a note for the teacher and is shocked when she discovers his identity. She struggles to reconcile the personality in the notes, with the actual person, She can't seem to make herself stop corresponding with him and begins to realize she needs to make some changes in order to become her "best self."  Although it's fairly obvious who the pen pal is, Lily's road to discovery and reinvention of herself is the real story.  Kasie West (The Fill-In Boyfriend and The Distance Between Us) can be counted on to deliver sympathetic characters, clever dialogue and sweet romance, and in her latest offering she does not disappoint!