Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!

Are you in or out?

According to 1994 stats, one out of every ten teens attempts suicide, and one out of every three try to kill themselves because they’d rather die than have anyone find out that they might be homosexual. Those are some seriously scary numbers. Being a teenager today means living day to day in a stifling atmosphere of conformity where being different is death, and for some that means literally. I know it’s comforting to look around at school and see cookie-cutter images of yourself, but adolescence is also a time of “trying on” different poses and attitudes and figuring out who and what you will be in the fast approaching adult future. And it’s not cool to dis someone because they may be “trying on” their sexuality, along with other aspects of their personality. So, gay or not, the awesome array of characters in these books will help you better understand homosexuality in teen life — from the inside “out”!

Johnny is a black-nail-polish-and-eyeliner-wearing recovering alcoholic who loves The Cure, The Ramones, and, ever since rehab, Blondie. Maria is a Goth-girl-on-the-rocks who dances by herself to Nico, The Clash, and Patti Smith. Neither one thinks anyone will ever love them, until they pogo into each other in a mosh pit at a local all-ages club. It’s Love and Rockets at first sight, except for the troubling fact that Maria initially thought Johnny was gay. Why? Just because he likes to Robert-Smith-it up a little? Johnny knows he’s not gay, or he wouldn’t dig Maria so much. But what do you call it when you like girls, but you secretly want to try on that little white dress from the thrift store that looks exactly like the one Debbie Harry wears on the cover of Parallel Lines? This hip work by newbie author Meagan Brothers encourages readers to explore the meanings of all the shades of gray that exist between gay and straight. Johnny and Maria’s romance is realistic, sweet, and quite unlike any other I’ve read about in teen books. After all, how many girlfriends would encourage their boyfriends to enter a drag contest? If you like Freak Show by James St. James or Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger, you’re gonna love DHSF. Coming to a library or bookstore near you May 2008!

Alex Ford wanted a horse so bad when he was little that he named his black bike “Del Magnifico le Noir” and fed it hay after he tied it up in the garage at night. Now that he’s a teenager and owns sweet, swaybacked Turnip, he tries to be grateful for the old cow horse. But what Alex really yearns for is dressage, the English tradition of riding, and poor old Turnip just doesn’t cut it when it comes to performing the fancy steps dressage demands. But Turnip isn’t the only one standing in Alex’s way. There’s also his macho alcoholic dad who thinks that dressage is for pretty boys and pansies, and the infuriating Cleo O’Shea, a spoiled rich girl who boards her horse at the stable where Alex works, and doesn’t half appreciate how lucky she is to have everything Alex wants. Adding insult to injury, Cleo develops a crush on him, not realizing that if Alex ever found time for a relationship outside the stable, it would be with a boy, NOT a girl. Will this reluctant cowboy ever be able to trade in his spurs for jodhpurs? Will he ever be able to find both the horse and the boy of his dreams? And if he does, how will he convince his dad that dressage didn’t make him gay, he was always that way? Mixing laughter with heartbreak in equal measure, Canadian queen of funny Susan Juby has penned an original story about being true to yourself and learning how to trot to your own beat. Experience more of Juby’s snort-inducing, offbeat humor online at www.susanjuby.com

Eighteen-year-old New Yorker James Sveck is happiest by himself. “People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don’t have very interesting lives. So I get impatient.” So now it’s his last summer before college, and James isn’t even sure he WANTS to go to college. He may just chuck it all and use his tuition money to buy a house in Kansas where he can be completely and utterly ALONE. But his divorced parents, worried about his strange love for the Mid-West and the fact that he may be gay (even though it supposedly “wouldn’t bother them one bit!”) send him to a shrink to in order to clear up his issues and go off to Brown like a good boy. Though James is skeptical about therapy at first, Dr. Adler manages to get him talking about all the things he never thought he’d share—his disastrous school trip to Washington D.C., his unacknowledged attraction to his mother’s sophisticated male gallery employee, and what he might have seen from the windows of his downtown Manhattan high school on 9/11. Suddenly, James realizes he is completely and utterly SAD, and has been for a long time. What he decides to do in order to change his depressed status forms the basis of this neurotic, funny, Woody-Allen-film of a YA novel. Its’ twin sister in the world of YA lit. is Garret Freymann-Weyr’s brilliant My Heartbeat, also featuring a smart, confused New York teen with issues. So if you’re finally sick of the vapid world of Gossip Girl, come visit a whole other New York within the pages of adult author Peter Cameron’s first title for older teens.

I have just two words for you, James St. James: LOVE IT! Your unrepentantly outrageous and brutally honest bi-polar portrayal of seventeen-year-old Billy Bloom, drag-queen-in-training-wheels is one of the freshest, funniest YA novels I’ve read in YEARS. My only complaint is that this wasn’t a picture book, so I couldn’t get a gander at all of Billy’s meticulously constructed outfits. Yes, to Billy Bloom, “Being fabulous, being relentlessly fabulous, is damned hard, hard work, I can tell you…It requires more than just…platform boots and an ironic tee to cut it in today’s marketplace.” Billy is determined to bring fashion and culture to the “Stepford teens” who populate his new private school in the depths of swampy red state Florida. But his unrelenting good cheer in the face of apathetic teachers and waves of spitballs is finally squashed by a brutal beating that he suffers at the hands of several football players. After a long recovery and a great deal of soul-searching, Billy comes to the conclusion that there’s nothing wrong with him, it’s the REST of the world who needs to learn how to deal! So he decides to launch his most ambitious project to date—a run for Homecoming Queen. Does Billy have a hope in heck? Or are all his glitter-dreams destined to go up in a poof of lavender-colored smoke? Make no mistake, this book isn’t just for the cross-dressers among us (although, they will love it). It is for every teen who was told he or she couldn’t play, can’t join, or isn’t invited, and who perservered anyway. Even though St. James’s message comes dressed in heels and a tiara, it still rings true: be yourself, no matter what, because at the end of the day, “you must find your own path and live with your own decisions.” And really, can any book blurbed by both Michael Cart AND Perez Hilton be anything short of FABULOUS? Slide into your best pair of feathery pink marabous and RUN not walk to your nearest library branch or bookstore to check out the best comeback-kid story since Justin Timberlake’s post ‘N Sync career!

Oh, E. Lockhart, could I love you more? I thought my love was complete after reading The Boyfriend List and Fly on the Wall. But, incredibly, my love for both of those books has been surpassed by my passion for the delicious Dramarama, which does for theater camp what Craig Thompson’s Blankets did for Jesus camp! (no not that one) Sayde (which sounds so much more “gawky-sexy” than plain old “Sarah”) and her best boy friend Demi (who has been in “straight drag” for far too long) travel to the Wildewood Summer Theater Institute in order to escape Ohio and finally be their true, fabulous selves. But the chance to unlease their amazing inner Lizas doesn’t go quite as Sayde expected. Instead of growing even closer, the BFF’s begin to drift apart. Demi discovers the strong, gay black man he was meant to be, and learns to toe the line when it comes to the rules of rehearsals, while Sayde is constantly pushing boundaries, and coming to the realization that she may be a better director than actor. Can Sayde learn to tamp down her “lurking bigness,” or is it about to explode all over the place and get her thrown out of not only drama camp, but also Demi’s heart? My teenage friends, you don’t have to be a Sandy or a Shark to appreciate both the drama and the real soul-searching that’s going on between these two friends. But if you are not of the musical theater ilk and want to hear the tunes Sayde’s obsessed with, visit E. Lockhart’s website www.theboyfriendlist.com and click on “Sadye’s iMix” in the right hand column for the songs that inspired the characters.

Angela is just your everyday, average teenager. She enjoys hanging out with her BFF Eve, taking care of her aunt Gail’s newborn baby, and shooting videos for the school’s closed circuit cable network. Except Angela’s known forever that the body she was born with isn’t the body she was meant to have. And the time has come to let everyone know that she’s not a lesbian, but a trans-gendered person, a boy named Grady who just happens to be wearing a girl’s body. Angela’s sudden transformation into Grady turns out to be difficult for everyone except Grady. He just can’t understand why his mother is so upset, why his friend Eve can barely stand to say his new name, why all the kids at school, except for the odd but funny Sebastian, make fun of him. Why should they care if he wants his outside to match his inside? What does it have to do with them? It’s only after Grady falls for Kita, one of the coolest girls at school that he understands just how difficult it is for a parrot to change its feathers. Or rather, a parrotfish. Named after the fish that can switch genders, Parrotfish is the kind of novel I have been waiting for since Luna (which, in all honesty, was not my favorite, although I know a lot of my teenage peeps loved it). Ellen Wittlinger, author of the now classic Hard Love has penned a revolutionary novel about what it really means to be a transgendered teen, and folks, I have to tell you, it ROCKS! Especially the hilarious subplot concerning Grady’s dad, an old school kind of guy who just can’t let go of his out of control Christmas decorations.

Back in the day (1986), the WNBA was just a twinkle in some future sports promoter’s eye. But girls were still taking the ball to their male counterparts. Nancy and Raina, stepsisters and all-star players, are living out their last year of high-school stardom living, breathing and worshipping the Cult of the Hoop. But the girls are tired of dealing with the college recruiters that dog their every step, and the racism that is leveled at them because of their mixed African-American and Japanese-American household. In addition, both girls are dealing with their emerging sexual identities as young lesbian women of color. Can their already stressed-out friendship take the pressure when their teams come into direct competition–with each other? After reading this sharp and sweaty novel of competition on the riot-grrl level, you’ll be saying, “SHE got game!”

Ever felt like you stood out like a sore thumb, an inkblot on an otherwise perfect page? Well, that’s how Evie feels in a nutshell. he’s stuck in the middle of Small-Town America with a big secret, a secret that her conservative-minded neighbors won’t forgive too easily should they find out. To her brother Parr, it’s becoming more and more apparent that there is something different about Evie. And he’s not sure he wants to know what that something is. Told from Parr’s point of view, this novel shows how sometimes its better stick out and be true to yourself than lose your individuality and join the party line. A challenging read.

Since you’ve probably outgrown fairy tales, you’ll be sure to appreciate this modern almost-fairy tale of a bigger than life girl named Weetzie Bat who lives on the coast with the most– California. Follow her funky adventures through L.A. Land with her gay glitter-friends Dirk & Duck, and her love-at-first-sight, My Secret Agent Lover Man. For those of you who never grew up, this fractured fairy tale will be your perfect bedtime story. The best way to enjoy this short novel is to read it out loud with your best girlfriend. Before the Spice Girls was Weetzie Bat–REAL girlpower!

Liza’s first love was Annie. But it ended all too soon. Now away at college, safe from the harsh critics and gossiping tongues that tore them apart, Liza looks back on her first romance. She and Annie were so naive that they didn’t even know what to call their relationship. Were they…lesbians? What did that word mean, exactly? And how could you label something so wonderfully right with a name they had learned was shameful? With dreamy prose, Garden sensitively chronicles the first awakenings of sexual awareness and identity between two young women. Several of you have emailed me at Reading Rants and asked, why isn’t this classic of YA lit. on your Closet Club list? Because Annie belongs here, among the blushes and blooms of first times. A beautiful love story that, gay or straight, you will hold in your heart long after the last page is turned.

My main worry when I started hearing the buzz about this book was that the rosy picture it paints of a incredibly tolerant small town where the star football quarterback is also a drag queen named Infinite Darlene would offend those gay teens who’ve had hard time admitting their homosexuality or coming out of the closet to family and friends. But what I’m hearing from teen readers, gay and straight, is that they love the fact that Levithan wrote a sweet love story between two young men in a high school where no one thinks twice about your sexuality, and that “being gay” is NOT the point of the book. While Levithan’s town is a tad unrealistic, his fantasy vision is balanced by the town next door, where narrator Paul’s best friend Tony has to live and deal with his intolerant, strictly religious parents. At turns sweet, wacky and serious, BMB reminds me most of the writing of my fav FLB (Francesca Lia Block).

Lissa and Kate have always been best friends. And since that night last summer when they both got a little drunk in the gazebo, Kate has tried to act like everything’s the same. But that night changed everything for Lissa. That was the night she kissed Kate, and Kate kissed her back. But that’s not how Kate remembers it, and now Lissa has a difficult choice to make: Can she still be friends with Kate if Kate can’t admit what they both know is true? Meanwhile, Lissa is trying to decide what her own truth is—is she straight or gay or something in between? Does kissing Kate mean that she likes girls, or that she just loves Kate? Lissa’s determined to figure it all out—but maybe not in time to save her relationship with Kate. A first novelist, Lauren Myracle gets that feeling of teenage questioning and frustration just right. A quiet but incredibly solid and well-written story about love, lucid dreaming (you’ll figure out where that comes in after you read it!) and difficult choices.

College-bound Maria is a small town Irish girl trying on Dublin city life for the first time. As she browses bulletin boards searching for anyplace to live other than the dorm, she finds an ad for a room with two lively female roomates—wickedly funny Jael and earth mother-ish Ruth. The three get along famously until Maria witnesses a rather steamy kiss between her two flatmates. Are Jael and Ruth a couple? And if so, why didn’t they tell her? And more importantly, can Maria live comfortably with two (gulp!) lesbians? Come along with Maria on her journey of self-discovery in this wry and realistic novel by brilliant Irish author Emma D.

Nic Lancaster thinks she knows exactly what she wants–to spend her life happily digging in the dirt as an archeologist. So to help her decide if she’s really meant to be a tomb raider, she’s goes to this advanced summer college program for high school students. There, she gets her own dorm room, a new pack of kooky-cool friends and an archeology professor who seems to really know her stuff–the whole college experience. Nic is only bothered by one thing–why isn’t she falling for Issac, a smart political-science guy who seems to be crushing on her? Instead, she’s finding herself uncomfortably and intensely attracted to Battle Davies, a North Carolina blonde who’s honeyed voice hides a cool intellect. For Nic, the summer will be one of realizing that while you may be able to categorize objects found on an archeological dig, you can’t always categorize your feelings or your sexuality the same way. Impressive first novel by Sara Ryan (who also happens to be a cool-kid YA librarian!!) Check out her web page at www.sararyan.com

Louie and Willa are like a lesbian Romeo and Juliet. Louie comes from a posh background, money, brilliant family, the whole works. Willa lives over the bar that her mum runs, practices fencing, and wants nothing more than be a chef with her own restaurant. When they meet and fall in love, they are forced to overcome Louie’s restrictive mother, hateful gossip, and a nearly fatal car crash. But unlike Romeo and Juliet, Dare Truth or Promise has a happier ending. Watch out for the language changes–New Zealand author Boock added a handy dandy glossary for those of you who aren’t sure what“ fair dinkum” means or what“ ranch sliders” are. A very literary, angsty lesbian love story, where the points of view sometimes confused me (wasn’t sure who was speaking, Louie or Willa) but the mature and descriptive writing always charmed me.

Everyone can remember the first time his or her best friend chose a girlfriend or boyfriend over him or her. It sucks. All of sudden, it’s like you don’t even exist. The only thing your best friend wants to talk about is how cute he is or what a great kisser she is. Emi-Lou is starting to feel that way, too, except that her best friend Yvonne hasn’t got a new guy, but has instead fallen in love with a girl on her softball team, the ironically nick-named Babes. Now, people in her school are starting to question and make fun of Emi-Lou’s sexuality as well. Add that to the already emotional backpack of having an absentee mom, an unknown dad and a massive weight problem, and Emi-Lou is not a happy camper. But through a series of painful experiences, she sheds most of that baggage and learns to think for and love herself. What’s so great about this book is watching Emi-Lou realize that it doesn’t matter if Yvonne is a lesbian or not, she (Emi-Lou) can be straight and still love Yvonne just as much. For all of you out there who are still a little bit uncomfortable with your friend’s sexuality, this one’s for you.

Suppose you had just met the girl of your dreams–she’s smart, funny, cute as hell, and a really good ‘zine writer. She seems perfect for you except for one little thing: she’s gay and you’re NOT a girl. John has totally lost it for Marisol, a cool, cute, completely out teenage lesbian. Even though he knows she only digs girls, he can’t help but wish that Marisol was different. But when he goes about trying to change things, John comes to the painful realization that the only person he can really change is himself. A real whizz-banger of a book–one of my favorites of 1999.

Charlie and Trent are own their own — they have no parents and older brother Trent is raising younger brother Charlie. Anyhoo, Charlie is pretty much a loner until he meets rich boy Brandon in detention. Brandon seems cool, so Charlie decides to take a chance and let Brandon be his bud. But when Charlie confides to Brandon that Trent is gay, Brandon backs off fast, leaving Charlie angry, confused and super cynical. Can Charlie learn to trust again? Should he forgive or just forget Brandon? A pretty original first novel about dealing with other people’s homophobia.

Folks, this is a SERIOUS problem novel, in every sense of the word. Not only is our main man Andy Logan gay, but he has an alcoholic father, an ineffective mother and hopeless crush on his sarcastic professor. In a series of flashbacks, college freshman Andy tells the reader how he dealt with the raging homophobia in his hometown (including the requisite gay-bashing, narrow-minded preacher) by confronting Daddy Dearest and having a fling with a cute football player. A bit on the angst-y side, but highly readable.

This creative collection contains short stories by some of the most heavy-hitting young adult authors around, including Francesca Lia Block, M.E. Kerr, Bruce Coville, and William Sleator. The title story (by Coville) asks the unusual question — what if everyone who was gay was identifiable, for example, by the color blue? Would you be surprised by how many “blue” people you may know and interact with on a daily basis? These stories look at teen homosexuality from every angle and destroy every gay stereotype you may have heard or read. This is a ground-breaking book, one of the first books published to address homosexual fiction for teens in a mainstream-kinda-way. An added bonus: Because so many great writers contributed to this book, you get a chance to check out the writing style of some of the best authors for teens in one shot!

Thirteen year old Melanin Sun was looking forward to spending the summer hanging out with his Brooklyn boys, Raphael and Sean, writing in his notebook and thinking about calling his crush, Angie. The last thing he’s prepared for is the load that his mom drops on him when she tells him that her new “date” isn’t a dude, but her close friend, a white woman named Kristin. Melanin is seriously confused — he likes Angie, but if his mom is gay, does that mean he is, too? And how is he going to explain this to his two best friends? And does he even WANT to explain it? Melanin may have to lose some friends and gain some understanding before he comes to painful terms with his mother’s lifestyle.

Dirk McDonald thinks that he may be in deep doo-doo. Since he was a little boy, he’s felt different from other kids. And now that he’s a teenager, he realizes that the difference has to do with who he’s attracted to — and it sure ain’t girls. When Dirk meets Pup Lambert, his secret attraction is pulled to the surface. As the boys get closer and closer, Dirk tries to decide if he can afford to reveal his secret — will it bind them closer together or will he lose Pup forever? Once he tells, he can never take that decision back. Follow Dirk on his journey of self-discovery as he goes on a mission in his mind to his family’s distant past and learns about the people who made him who and what he is. A magically-real book, like all the novels by Block. If you end up digging Dirk as much as I do, read more about him and his friends in Dangerous Angels, the collected Weetzie Bat books

Lang Penner, unlike a lot of teenage guys, knows exactly who and what he is — gay and in love with his boyfriend, Alex. Or so he thought. Suddenly, Lang is as mixed up as any other seventeen-year old adolescent when he meets Huguette. Huguette(pronounced “Eu-gette”, “If you say my name Yougette, you get nothing!”) is a French student who is staying with the famous rock star, Ben Nevada, who Lang’s mom is keeping house for during the summer in the Hamptons. Sound complicated? It gets worse — away from Alex all summer, Lang finds himself falling for the gorgeous Huguette, but he’s told Brittany, a friend who had a crush on him, that he’s gay — could he be wrong? This book will take you all around the mulberry bush as you and Lang try to figure out the true nature of attraction, and the differences between love and sex.

Cary’s life is going from complicated to absolutely incomprehensible. She’s dating Danny, a cool boy that most of the girls in her school would kill to go out with. But she’s completely miserable, because whether she wants to admit it to herself or not, she’s really in love with Danny’s glamorous twin, Wendy. Cary wants to be known for her retro-Audrey Hepburn look and her hot stoner boyfriend, not her possible attraction to girls. But the “Lesbian Collective”, a group of girls at school who are already comfortable with their sexuality are determined to “out” Cary. What’s a confused girl to do? Cary’s inner thoughts take the shape of Rad, an imaginary grunge god who consuls Cary by talking only in song lyrics(it’s pretty fun figuring out what song lines he’s using — I recognized quite a few by Tori Amos). But even he can’t get her out of the tough decisions that she has to make. Sounds tripped out, I know, but Shelley Stoehr is one of my all-time fav authors and this newest novel does not disappoint. If you like Wendy, you may also want to scan other S.S. novels like Wannabe and Weird on the Outside.

Noli looks like a guy. For sure, a cute thin guy, but a guy, nevertheless. Her mom is always on her back to act more girly. That’s why she’s so surprised when T.J., this super-fine transfer student picks her to be his new best bud. They do everything together, even dress alike, and pretty soon, Noli is in love. T.J. claims to dig her just as passionately as she does him, yet he’s pretty uninterested in taking their relationship to the next level, which for Noli means physical. When T.J. finally admits to Noli that he’s gay, the results are devastating. Don’t necessarily expect a happily-ever-after ending with this so-completely-true to life novel.