Goodness this post is late coming! I basically had to take an entire week to come down and decompress from my journey into The Heart of Youngness...
Overall Impressions:
Well, as you know, I spent the full 30 days of April reading
nothing but YA novels, specifically YA novels that focused largely on the
stories of LGBTQ+ young people. For the most part all the books I read fell victim at times to traditional, annoying tropes and cliches YA is kind of known for (super attractives are prioritized, parents are sooooo out of touch, INSTALOVE etc.) I’m surprised to say that I’m coming away
really disappointed in the quality of some of these stories. I never go into
YApril expecting that all the books will be winners, I even actively try to add
at least one book that has controversial or split reviews. But this year I
ended up with selection of books that mostly ranged from dangerously, offensively
inaccurate to crushingly boring. I’m coming away from this month with the
overwhelming impression that queer young people deserve better, they deserve access
to quality and diverse choice in their stories, they deserve stories that are
told accurately and with sensitivity. In short they deserve more than what I
saw in these books.
Maybe I chose the wrong books, it’s entirely possible that I
selected a very narrow field of stories that represent a very narrow field of
experience. But regardless, I wish largely disappointed.
Now without further ado, here’s my #YApril Wrap-up!
The Good
via GIPHY
Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda AND The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
While I’m a little disappointed that my favorite books this
year weren’t actually #OwnVoices for the most part and that one (The Upside of Unrequited) didn’t even
focus on a queer protagonist, these two were my hands down most enjoyable
reads. They were well written, diverse, and felt fairly authentic to the
adolescent experience. This is probably a result of Albertalli’s background in
child psychology, but whatever it is it worked.
Simon
vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda: This one was absolutely my favorite book of
the month, Simon and his friends are a delightful cast of extremely relatable
characters. I love that even though it is a fairly typical ‘coming out/coming
of age’ story, it has a freshness and a groundedness that makes it a really
enjoyable read. The email exchanges between Simon and Blue (the anonymous
object of his affection) are sweet and fun and develop their relationship on a
really emotionally satisfy level. The only part of the story that I find a
little weak is the blackmailing plot. I know it’s the catalyst for the whole
story, but it’s the only part of the novel that feels like contrived and
forced. But it can totally be forgiven based on the overall strengths of the
novel.
The
Upside of Unrequited: This one comes in second place. While at times it
can read a bit like a diversity checklist and the fact that it has a straight
love story at its center, this book was fun to read. I love that Molly (the
protagonist) is fat, and that her fatness isn’t punished by anyone but a drunk
jerk at a party, her deliberately out of touch grandma and her own
insecurities. She is never shown to be undeserving of love or basic human
dignity and I think that’s a dynamic that’s sadly still missing from A LOT of
literature, not just YA. I loooooooove her queer, mixed race moms (very The Fosters without the angst/Callie
drama) and that while one was a lesbian the other was explicitly bisexual (!!!)
and never vilified for it! It doesn’t shine as brightly as Simon (it is a spiritual squeal to Simon and characters from
the first book turn up in this one) which I think probably comes from the story
being a little less immediate/highstakes… there’s no blackmailing or high
school musical, just crushes, summer jobs and Pinteresting her moms’ wedding.
The relationship between her and her (eye-rolls forever) “fearless” skinny,
effortlessly perfect sister, is complex and realistic in a way that is both
touching and can be deeply annoying. But my biggest qualm with the book is a
minor lack of attention to timeline detail. Early in the book it’s announced
that the Supreme Court has declared the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional,
(June 2015) which is a major event in the story (and like in history as well
obviously). ALSO early in the novel two of the characters make a Hamilton joke… there’s the fly in the ointment.
Hamilton made its Broadway debut in August
2015 and released its soundtrack on September 25th 2015… so unless
these two teenagers were avid musical theatre geeks, who had somehow scored
tickets to the Off-Broadway run at The Public Theatre prior to June 2015, there
is really no believable way that they would be able to make casual Hamilton jokes to each other. It’s not a
HUGE issue, it didn’t ruin the book, but it did annoy me… a lot. That quibble
aside it was a fun book to read and was largely positive and accepting of a
wide variety of identities.
The ‘Meh’
Georgia Peaches & Other Forbidden Fruits by Jaye Robin Brown
This book has lingered on my TBR stack for months… after
reading it, I pretty much wish it had stayed there. Not because it was bad or
dangerous (it only indulged in two damaging lesbian stereotypes), but because
it was so boring. I didn’t care about the characters beyond being mildly
interested in how the pressures of “traditional” faith and the protagonist’s
identity would intersect (hint there isn’t that much of that). It stands in
stark contrast to the Albertalli (and even the Robin Talley) diversity. Every
characters feels middle class and white… it’s a haze of beige (I do think there
might be a black character buried in there somewhere, but she has little to do
and isn’t a major player). I didn’t care about Jo, I didn’t care about her love
interest (the inexplicably named Mary Carlson—that’s her first name, not her
full name FYI), I liked her friend until the novel needed her to be involved in
some sexy high stakes identity theft scheme and everything ended up being
annoying. I feel this one had so much potential, but ultimately fell extremely
flat.
Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin
I don’t really know where to start with this one… I was wary
of this book, if you may remember, I was worried that never revealing Riley’s
assigned at birth gender would feel like a gimmick, and not a natural extension
of the character/narrative. I was right. It’s written in a way that forces the
audience to constantly question. I wanted more from a story about a fluid,
nonbinary character, what I didn’t want was their gender expression and
identity conflict to BE the story. There is some potential here, the conflict
of Riley’s father being a conservative politician seeking reelection, there’s
bullying, an online crisis, blackmailing crisis (if it didn’t work in Simon you can be damn sure it doesn’t
work here), and the traditional coming out drama. Any of these could have been
an interesting alley to walk down… but my biggest complaint with this one is
that there just isn’t enough story there. It’s a boring book. There’s a little
more diversity here with a POC secondary character, Neuro-divergent individuals
are treated for the most part with sensitivity (but at times it does feel like
the author is suggesting the stress of being nonbinary CAUSES mental illness…
but that could just be my over-sensitive read). It does a better job of
presenting and explaining gender-fluid/nonbinary as a valid identity than the
disaster that is What We Left Behind,
but it can’t overcome how boring it is and how aggressively “meh” I felt when I
had finished it.
The Ugly
via GIPHY
What We Left Behind by Robin Talley
This was one of my biggest disappointments. I love Robin
Talley, I love that she explicitly writes stories about queer youths. I love
that she tried to tackle this issue, the complex identity crisis that comes
along with discovering you aren’t what you assumed you were, and how that
affects the relationships in your life. It could have been so good. It could
have been so important. But it just wasn’t. It fundamentally misunderstands and
misinterprets what being gender-fluid/nonbinary means (it treats gender
fluidity as a step on the way to full gender transition, with characters
actually mocking Toni for being gender-fluid and pressuring them into accepting
that they’re actually a transman), characters are consistently misgendered, it
makes a mockery of the power of language and the need for individuals to
determine their own pronouns and identifiers, characters making transphobic
slurs go unchallenged and unchecked, and Gretchen’s feelings and her identity
anxiety (she’s a lesbian whose partner is transitioning f to m) are brushed off
and treated as her being selfish, her identity is not deemed as important,
being straight is treated like the worst thing EVER because it’s so normal and
boring. Its worst offense is that is that it doesn’t seem to treat
genderqueer/gender-fluid/nonbinary as though they are their own valid gender identities
which is a dangerous thing. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong
with identifying as genderfluid/nonbinary early in life only to realize, once
you have the language and knowledge to express that you are in fact
transgender, but there is something wrong with implying that all gender-fluid
people are just on their journey to full transition… I wouldn’t not want this
book to get into the hands of a young person who is feeling uncertain of their
gender identity. The diversity in the book is 100% diversity checklist without
much thought given to the character’s actual ethnic/gender/sexual identities
beyond the book being able to proclaim that it is DIVERSE! On top of all that,
it is so incredibly boring. Every scene is just characters discussing what it
means to be gender-fluid, transgender, nonbinary and why the language we have
is both sufficient and lacking… sometimes those discussions are about how lame
people who don’t identify the same way as the speaker are… this is a book of
flawed lectures on gender… it was so completely tedious. It’s a long book where
most of the action is tedious, repetitious conversations. In many ways this was
my biggest disappointment this year… but that dishonor goes to another book…
THE DANGEROUS
via GIPHY
Look Both Way by Allison Cherry.
I was warned about this book. I was warned that is was bad
representation. I was warned that it was queerbaiting. I was warned that it was
stupid and unbelievable. I was warned, and yet I persisted (you know to
blasphemously co-opt a recent feminist mantra). Every warning was right. This
book is dangerous. This book in the hands of a vulnerable girl questioning her
sexuality could do real harm. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around
the badness of this book… I can only do it in list form!
- Queerbaiting: This book is marketed as a female/female romance. Everything about leads you to believe that this is going to be a sweet summer fling between two talented young women. It’s not. It uses the bisexual/lesbian angle to get you to pick up the book and then sucker punches you with every offensive bisexual stereotype there is, and a straight f/m romance thrown in to make sure no one mistakes Brooklyn for an actual queer person. It uses people’s real identities as marketing ploy
- Bisexual Stereotypes: Zoe, Brooklyn’s roommate/lover is a walking talking bisexual stereotype encyclopedia. She’s greedy (wants her boyfriend AND Brooklyn), she unfaithful, she puts men before women, she’s hypersexual and tries to pressure Brooklyn into having sex when she’s clearly uncomfortable. This is damaging, upsetting and offensive representation, and considering the ending (it’s implied that Brooklyn is headed for a straight relationship) it seems as though Brooklyn brush with this evil bisexual has in fact scared her straight.
- Brooklyn’s Mom: Brooklyn’s mother is an assumed bisexual as well and she literally pushes sexual experimentation onto Brooklyn, pressuring her into finding a girl to date. WHAT? Like What. The. Actual. Fuck. Her mom is another character that is bad representation, she trying to force her daughter into the LGBTQ+ community against her will.
- The Theatre: I do theatre on the regular. I hated the theatre people in this book. Also, it feels like Cherry chose this setting just so she could show off the fact that she knows some lighting technical jargon… cool.
This book is wildly offensive on a personal level. I wanted
to like it. I wanted to be super excited for it… but it was literally
EVERYTHING everyone warned me about. On top of that, it was, you guessed:
boring.
Final Thoughts
This was a rough month, because I learned something about
the mainstream LGBTQ+ YA books. While on
the surface it looks like we’re heading in a great direction, there’s a lot
more visibility for queer youth in their books (and way more queer visibility
in YA than anywhere else in mainstream lit) than there was when I was YA. But
something that I’ve noticed in these books is that it’s not enough. Visibility is
not enough. Queer characters merely existing is not in fact good
representation. Queer characters need quality stories to live inside, they need
more than just the same three coming out stories, or blackmail stories, or
explaining what you are to straight audiences stories. Visibility is not
representation, it’s just the first step. That’s what I got out of this month.
That and… I feel old.
