#YApril Wrap-Up

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

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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 25^th 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’

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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

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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

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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!

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

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When I was YA: The Jessica Darling Series

Once upon a time, in the early 2000s, the YA genre was pretty limited. We had decades old Judy Blume books (which I am not knocking FYI), the saccharinely tragic love stories of Lurlene McDaniel (I never got to read them because they were always checked out) a few soapy series that put Gossip Girl to shame, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, (which wasn’t even shelved as YA at the time) and the magically pretentious works of Francesca Lia Block.

I read them all—except of McDaniel—with abandon, but I never saw myself on those pages. All of the teens were too worldly, too pretty, too troubled, too tragic etc. I never saw honestly rendered awkwardness, or anxiety, or anyone who ever seemed even a little bit real in those YA novels. That is, until I met the awesome Jessica Darling.

The Jessica Darling series written by Megan McCafferty, (who’s also written the pretty interesting dystopian YA series Bumped/Thumped) introduces the world to Jessica Darling a clever, funny, moody, and definitely not always nice sixteen year old dealing with the devastation of her best friend moving away right in the middle of high school, the ups and downs of her feelings for her complicated first love, and her endlessly frustrating family.

I loved (and still love) Jessica because she’s real to me. She’s not “troubled”, but she is deeply flawed and tartly funny. Her problems are the same ones that many teens/young adults go through. It’s her approach to the world that makes her special rather than her circumstances. Her “adventures” are commonplace and everyday. Her friends and family are exaggerated in such an honest adolescent way which makes them hilarious and charming to the reader. Very little in this series rings false which is why it’s such a powerful time machine for me. As a relic of the early 2000s it lacks the ubiquity of cellphones (Hope and Jessica email each other quite a lot, but very little if any cellphone action) we see today, that and references to Y2K really remind me of my teen years. But ultimately it’s the honesty and humor of the writing brings me back to when I was that age and that time in my life.

 McCafferty treated her devoted readers to five installments that took Jessica from a teen in high school to a young adult dealing with her first job out of college. All the while she struggles with her family, friends, relationships and life in general in a way that while familiar is fun and engaging.

Today young adults and teens have a wide variety of unique characters and interesting impactful stories to choose from, but take it from one of your elders (me… I’m an old): READ THIS SERIES.

Seriously, go read… You, Yes You.

This  post was originally published on The Bookish Blog

Nonfiction Nook: April Spotlight

Most of my reading is fiction. I can’t help it, it’s a coping thing, escaping reality and all that.

BUT as I am a mercurial creature with a capricious temperament, my fickle tastes can change with the wind. Because I am at heart a scholar/academic nerd, I will be overtaken by the need to learn something, and will NEED hit up Amazon/Barnes & Noble/the library for some Nonfiction. This doesn’t happen all the time, but it happens enough that I think it might make for a nice little recurring feature here.

 Here’s what in The Nonfiction Nook for April 2017

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

As any English teacher will tell you, there is a secret, unspoken rule that we must all attempt to get our students to if not read, be aware of the importance of the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. This has always been so and will always be so. But besides being an English teacher, I love Shirley Jackson. I think she’s fallen tragically out of fashion in both the recreational and academic reading, and that she never really got the attention she deserved as a writer beyond “The Lottery”. So when this book was announced I knew I had to have it and read and love it… but it cost a ridiculous amount for a biography so it’s been languishing on my Wishlist since it came out… UNTIL NOW! I found a copy in excellent shape in a local used bookstore and bought it right up.

Live From New York: The Complete Uncensored History of ‘Saturday Night Live’ as Told by Its Stars, Writers and Guests by James Andrew Miller

Confession time… I have and will probably always weigh my Saturday night plans against whether or not I will be home in time to watch the live broadcast of SNL. So it has been since I was about 12 years old. I was unaware of this book when it came out, but this newest edition, which includes interviews with newer cast members (I believe it has rosters all the way up through Shasheer Zamata), and that is definitely something I am interested in. I bought this book in part because I’m working on a project that requires me to have a fairly thorough knowledge of SNL history. The other part is my desire to read some of the dishier stories about the show’s early years.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders byJoshua Foer, Ella Morton, and Dylan Thuras

This is another book that’s been hovering around the top of my wishlist since it was announced, but again its price coupled with the fact that I didn’t have an immediate need for such a book. I’m fascinated by weird things, I love strange places (The House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI is one of my Top Five Places on the Planet… you know just for reference) and while I currently don’t have the means to physically travel the world, I did have a $20.00 Amazon giftcard. I haven’t had the chance to really sit down with this one yet. But I can’ wait to give it a good going over.

So there you have it, the nonfiction books that have piqued my curiosity this month.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Reading...

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Well, dear readers, I’m a little more than halfway through my YApril reading list, and I’m burning out. Maybe it’s because every day the news from the real world is beyond alarming, or that my own personal demons are howling at that door, OR that most of the books I’ve been reading haven’t been able to distract me from all of the above, but guys YApril isn’t having its usual energizing effect on me. Three of the last four books I’ve read have ranged from wildly, infuriatingly offensive (Look Both Ways) to boring and disappointing (Symptoms of Being Human & Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruits). The only book that I’ve absolutely loved so far is Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli. It’s a sweet and largely positive book, the only drawback of course is that it’s not an #ownvoices book.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m writing this. What am I getting at? Well reader, as it turns out Ms. Albertalli’s new book The Upside of Unrequited was released today, and I’m interrupting my regularly schedule TBR and moving this one to the top.

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.
Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly's totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie's new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. If Molly can win him over, she'll get her first kiss and she'll get her twin back. 
There's only one problem: Molly's coworker, Reid. He's a chubby Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there's absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. 
Right?

I’ve been seeing this one popping up all over BookTube and Bookstagram, and I knew that I was going to have to read it eventually, buuuuuuuut after seeing Cece Ewing’s Spoiler-Free Review on her Problems of a Book Nerd BookTube channel yesterday I decided that I HAD to read it ASAP.

The review makes me confident that, even though it’s not #ownvoices and the main character isn’t LGBTQ+, there is plenty of diversity and representation to satisfy the requirements of this month’s theme. After the bummer that was Symptoms of Being Human, this seems like it will definitely be a much needed happy read… I hope it’s a happy read… I need some happy right now.

So, yeah, I’ll be reading taking a quick break and reading The Upside of Unrequited and then I’ll get back to our regularly scheduled TBR.

Also, you should definitely check out Problems of a Book Nerd, it’s a delightful channel and Cece has great taste!

Guest Post: Elizabeth's #YApril

Quick introduction time: My name is Elizabeth, and I used to write with Katy on The Bookish Blog! I’m an avid reader and writer. My favorite genres are fantasy and classics, but I also enjoy reading contemporary, memoirs, and some historical fiction.

I have a love-hate relationship with young adult literature. On one hand, it’s fun, easy to read, and, lately, covers a vast array of mental health issues, persons of color, and LGBTQ+ issues. That being said, YA is not without its problems.

I’ve found that when I read multiple YA novels in a row, they all start to sound the same. A lot of the storylines repeat themselves even across genres of YA, like the “chosen one” theme, the “bad guy turns out to be good,” or vice versa plotlines, and they all sort of start to run together. So a month of reading nothing but YA could be very challenging for me, but I’m willing to give it a try.
I don’t know how much I’ll be able to take of constant love triangles that rarely make any sense, girls being told they’re beautiful, as if that’s the most important thing in life (and they’re all beautiful, though most don’t know it), and so help me if I read about one more person who releases a breath they didn’t know they were holding. Despite the clichés, there can be some pretty good literature out there. For instance, anything by Libba Bray, Rainbow Rowell, or Patrick Ness is probably good, but I’ve found I have to search for something really amazing within the YA genre.
This month I’ll be reading a few books I’ve been looking forward to reading, some new and some a bit older. My goal is to read five books this month, but I’m going to give myself six to choose from, just in case.

1. City of Saints and Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson – I’ve heard good things about this book, and as I’ve been trying to read books by POC, this seemed like a good option.

2. Caraval by Stephanie Garber – This book intrigued has me from the second I read the teaser, though I was going to wait until it came out in paperback to buy it. Fortunately for me, it came in my February Owlcrate, so I didn’t have to wait. I’m really looking forward to this one.

3. Heartless by Marissa Meyer – This is another book I got through my Owlcrate, which has gotten a lot of buzz in the bookish community. I love a fairy tale retelling, if it’s done well, so we’ll see what this book has to offer.

4. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – I have to admit that I’ve sort of been saving this one, for what exactly, I don’t know. This book has 4.46 stars on Goodreads, which is insanely high for a young adult book, so my expectations are high.

5. A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro – I’m a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, so this book jumped out at me right away. Despite the mediocre reviews, I’m hoping I’ll find something to like about this ode to Arthur Conan Doyle.

6. Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff – I had to do one sequel in here. I have a bad habit of starting book series/trilogies/duologies and only ever reading the first book, something I’ve done with countless YA novels. YApril is the perfect excuse for me to continue on with some of the series I’ve begun. I should also add Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard, A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, Wandering Star by Romina Russell, etc. Someday!

I can’t wait to get started on this challenge and to knock out some of the ever-growing pile of young adult books on my shelves. You’ll hear from me again at the end of the month when I’m sure I’ll have a severe YhAngover, if you know what I mean. (I even flinched at how bad that one was.)