Tag: LGBT issues

nonfiction

Book Review: The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

Stephanie3 Comments

Book friends are really the best, aren’t they? A few weeks ago, in our weekly ‘what are you reading’ book discussion, a friend said she was reading The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2017). I checked it out on Goodreads and immediately clicked the want-to-read button, because the premise so intrigued me, and on a recent trip to the library with my oldest child, who has been doing a lot of reading from the YA section lately, I grabbed a copy of this book from the small YA nonfiction section. And I wasn’t disappointed. If you’ve ever thought that crime was cut and dry, black and white, lock them up and throw away the key because crime is committed by horrible people, this is a book that will have you reconsidering everything you thought you knew.

Sasha, an agender teenager, was riding the bus home from school one day when another teenager, Richard, who was getting rowdy with and being egged on by friends, lit their skirt on fire, thinking it would only smolder before waking Sasha up, and that this would be a good prank. Instead, Sasha’s gauzy skirt lit up, leaving them with second and third-degree burns over something like a third of their body. Richard is arrested and charged with a hate crime, tried as an adult despite the fact that he was a teenager, and in a way that leaves him facing life in prison. But the story isn’t as simple as ‘this kid committed a hate crime, lock him up and throw away the key.’ Dashka Slater does an amazing job of taking a hard look at a lot of complex topics, and she does it all in a way that’s accessible to teens learning to understand these issues.

Heavy subjects here. A good portion of the book deals with gender and gender identity; Ms. Slater was learning about the topic herself and lays everything out in a way that’s easy to understand. Sasha was lucky to be born into a family and community of people who accepted them for who they were, amongst a crowd of friends who rallied around them and loved them unconditionally. Richard, who grew up in a family and a community mired in poverty and violence, wasn’t so fortunate (to be entirely honest, his family seemed completely normal; I really felt for his mother while reading this); the choices we as a society make about poverty and who deserves what lead to communities beleaguered by the problems Richard’s community faces. We also compound the problem by immediately absolving ourselves as a society of any responsibility for these problems and the crime they so often lead to, and this is obvious in the way that Richard was quickly charged as an adult, with life in prison on the line. We also like to discount the science of brain development and ignore the fact that teenage brains are not adult brains. They make stupid, shitty, impulsive decisions because their brains are literally not yet fully formed. It’s like sending your newborn to their room without dinner because they waved an arm they’re not fully in control of and hit you in the face. We all know it takes babies a few months to even figure out they can willfully move their arms and hands around and use them with purpose; teenage brains are the same in terms of development, but instead of understanding this and incorporating that knowledge into our society, we’ve turned that completely normal underdevelopment into a problem for which the only solution is throwing the whole teenager away.

The strength of Sasha and their family in this book is enormous; their understanding and willingness to look beyond their own pain and the media’s narrative is remarkable. I’m not sure I would be so quick to understand or move on, honestly; I like to think I *could* get there, but it would take some work. The pain and bewilderment of Richard’s friends and family was a lot to read about. They were confused, still struggling with the realities of their everyday lives while trying to figure out why Richard did what he did and trying to be supportive while he fought to even have a future at all. 

This was just so sad and hard to read, and Ms. Slater does such a fabulous job of illustrating the depth of problems in our society surrounding all the issues covered in this book: understanding of gender, safety for LGBTQ+ folks, poverty, income disparity, violence, the many, many problems with our justice system, and so much more. I read this all in one day, but it’s a story that will stick with me forever.

Visit Dashka Slater’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction · YA

Book Review: This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

Stephanie6 Comments

Next stop on the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: a book that’s been banned or challenged in any state in 2022. Easy pick there! Earlier this year (or maybe even late last year; who knows, time is meaningless anymore), I attended a virtual program about the uptick in book bans and challenges, put on by a local Jewish group and featuring local bookstore owners and library folks. It was fascinating and enlightening and also enraging, because we all know book banners are sad people with no lives, no hobbies, and no ability to think for themselves, so they listen to the political leaders who tell them what to think in order to better manipulate folks and go about trying to make everyone else’s lives as sad and pathetic as their own. A local bookstore owner and a librarian both mentioned the book This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson (Hot Key Books, 2014), saying that they had a terrible time trying to keep the shelves; people would steal it or hide it somewhere so others couldn’t check it out or buy it – and they specifically mentioned it was grown-ass adults doing this. Like, okay, Karen and Brad, maybe take up knitting or geocaching and let everyone else live their lives? Anyway, I put this book on my TBR immediately, and it was a perfect fit for this challenge.

Juno Dawson has written a super helpful book for the teen LGBTQ+ crowd. When we talk to our kids about sex, we give them the facts – about straight sex, that is. Tab A goes into Slot B, and if sperm meets egg, nine months later, out comes a baby, end of story. But that’s NOT the end of the story, right? There’s a lot of the story we don’t tell our kids, and since some of those kids are statistically going to grow up to be gay/lesbian or asexual (or aromantic), our regular parenting scripts aren’t cutting it for them. Hence, Juno Dawson has stepped in to fill in the blanks in an age-appropriate manner.

She talks to teens who have questions about the different sexual identities they may realize they’re a part of, about the mechanics of sex (this is information teenagers want and need, and they’re either going to get it from us as parents, from their likely-just-as-misinformed-or-confused friends, from the unregulated, porn-filled-wilds of the internet, or from a well-researched and medically accurate book. YOU PICK), about safety in terms of both health and physical safety, and how to live in this world as someone on the queer spectrum. It’s full of stories and quotes from actual people who grew up queer and have made a place for themselves in the world, and who are here to give advice to each other and the younger generation so that things will be a little bit easier for them.

There’s nothing explicit here more than a basic, medically accurate sex talk with a parent or a doctor would be explicit. There’s nothing in here I wouldn’t be embarrassed or upset about my kids reading. (What would upset me is if my kids felt like they couldn’t talk to me about this kind of stuff. I get kids not wanting to ask parents; holy embarrassment factor! I get that. That’s understandable. But beyond that, I hope I’ve fostered the kind of relationship with them that if they could get past that entirely normal talking-to-parents-about-sex embarrassment, they’d know they could come to me with questions about this kind of stuff. That’s the kind of relationship I’ve always hoped to build with them. But for the too-embarrassed crowd, right along with the my-parents-have-shamed-me-too-much-to-ask-this crowd, this book exists, and that’s a wonderful thing.) What is in here is information and an attitude that lets teens know what they may be feeling is okay and how to live in this world with those feelings. It’s incredibly positive and informative, and it’s FUNNY. Seriously, any book that uses the phrase ‘ghost wieners’ is okay in my book!

This Book Is Gay is a book I would have no problem handing either of my kids. I’m sad for the kids of these pathetic book-banning parents, because they’re already getting the message that their parents’ love is conditional, and should they find themselves somewhere on the rainbow spectrum, Mom and Dad will be ashamed of them. What a garbage message to send your kids. I’m glad there are folks out there like Juno Dawson to tell kids the truth.

Also, I managed to read this whole book and I’m still a religious, straight, non-hateful cisgender female with zero fashion sense. Man, what else are those book banners wrong about???

Visit Juno Dawson’s website here. 

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God by Amber Cantorna

StephanieLeave a comment

Cults and high-control religious groups are a longtime fascination of mine, and there are definite factions of evangelical Christianity that fall into this group (someone I attended high school with has fallen into one of these groups, unfortunately. It might actually be more than one; I’m not sure which group the second person affiliates with). I end up reading everything I can about these groups, and it was digging through a list of these books that I discovered Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God by Amber Cantorna (Fortress Press, 2017).

Amber Cantorna grew up the daughter of one of Focus on the Family’s top employees; her father worked for Focus almost his entire career. If you’re not familiar with this organization, it’s an evangelical Christian organization that guides families using a strict evangelical interpretation of the Bible. Amber was homeschooled, she grew up steeped in purity culture, and she knew her future would be one of marriage and motherhood, because that was the only acceptable future for a Christian girl. But as Amber grew, things didn’t quite fit in place the way Focus on the Family demanded them to, and she was left feeling…out of place. Not quite right.

It wasn’t until her early adulthood that Amber realized she was a lesbian. Coming out to her parents took a lot of courage, work, and help from her therapist, and it still couldn’t have gone worse. Her parents ended up cutting off contact. They weren’t there at her wedding, and as of the writing of the book, it seems as though they no longer speak to her.

It’s painful still, but Amber has managed to salvage her faith and grow into the person she was meant to become, with her wife at her side. She writes books and speaks to groups about living as a gay Christian and the importance of inclusion. Despite being abandoned by the family who once told her they would always be there for her, she’s managed to craft a beautiful life for herself. Living well truly is the best revenge.

Tough read in terms of story, but it’s ultimately one of triumph. I’m glad Ms. Cantorna has turned her pain into support for others, and I hope all the people who need to hear her story will find their way to this book.

Visit Amber Cantorna’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher

Stephanie1 Comment

I admit, as a book person, and as a huge nonfiction book person, when the pandemic first hit, I thought, ‘Man, the books about this time period are going to be fascinating.’ And they’ve started to roll in, and they are indeed fascinating, along with being utterly devastating. The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher (Celadon Books, 2022) is one of those books, and it’ll pull you in and squeeze your heart with both hands.

Dr. Steven Thrasher is both Black and gay; both of these are markers for experiencing more adverse health outcomes. HIV/AIDS hits both these groups at a higher rate than white people, or straight people. There are groups that experience adverse outcomes in much higher rates than others, and Dr. Thrasher examines these, using the AIDS epidemic, the COVID pandemic, and various other viruses throughout history. This isn’t stodgy academic writing; he delves deeply into his own life, his experiences and those of his friends and colleagues, his communities, to drive the point that we have created a society where illness spreads more easily and more surely along class and racial lines. It doesn’t have to be like this…but try telling that to the people at the top of this hierarchy and see how fast they riot when there’s no one from those lower classes to serve them at Applebee’s. We’ve seen this type of behavior all throughout the pandemic. Members of the viral underclass are more likely to have public-facing jobs and cannot isolate or work from home, and we as a society demand they get back there as soon as possible. And thus, they die at much higher rates, and we as a society see this, shrug, and await their replacements.

This is a sobering book, and it needs to be read by everyone. I can’t vouch for other countries, since I’ve only ever lived in the US, but here, we’re all so disconnected from each other. We stick to our circles and don’t engage with people outside of them, and thus, we don’t understand the devastation caused by this stratification of society, outside of, “Huh, wonder where that one guy that worked at the gas station went. Haven’t seen him in months. Anyway…” Dr. Thrasher has really written an eye-opening account of how blasé we are a society of throwing away people who aren’t like us. It’s a major wake-up call, one I’m not hopeful that the majority of us will hear.

Visit Dr. Steven Thrasher’s page at Celadon books here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction · YA

Book Review: All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto by George M. Johnson

StephanieLeave a comment

Okay, so a few weeks ago, I attended a virtual talk on all the garbage book banners out there and the mess they’re making and the stupid things they’re doing. Seriously, what a bunch of whiny toddlers throwing super gross adult-sized tantrums. Mind your own business, skunkbags. At one point in the presentation, one of the people presenting mentioned the book All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2020). I was aware of the book, had seen it around, and knew what it was about, but it wasn’t on my TBR…until the presenter mentioned that whiny Texas governor and human sack of lawn cuttings Greg Abbott had thrown a fit over this book. Knowing what I know about that crapweasel with no taste who is grossly lacking in humanity AND leadership skills, I knew this was likely to be a good read, so onto my list it went. And hey! I was right and Greg Abbott is wrong. Shocker, I know.

George Johnson, who has also gone by Matt (story explained in the book) is a queer Black man who grew up with more feminine traits, who took some time getting comfortable with his queer identity, and was fortunate to grow up in a family who accepted him and loved him for who he was.  All Boys Aren’t Blue is the story of his life: his childhood, spending time with his beloved grandmother, called Nanny, who worked so hard to make him feel loved and accepted; his adolescence, where he began to understand some things about himself and worked to hide other parts; his college years, where it all began to come together. Through it all, George learns and grows, and begins to accept himself for who he is: a delightful, intelligent human being who lives at the intersection of Black and queer.

He has so many good lessons for the reader, lessons about self-acceptance, love, courage, confidence, safety, and more. I deeply appreciated how he related stories from his childhood and adolescence to show how he learned about himself, what he learned, and how he applied this to his life as a whole. I enjoyed particularly the stories he told about how he got into sports and how that surprised everyone around him: an effeminate boy who could play football and run like the wind? Don’t box yourself in. We all contain multitudes. 🙂

George M. Johnson has always lived outside the box, but he’s also always found ways to thrive, and he’s sharing everything he’s learned with the YA set. This is an important book; queer kids, and queer Black kids, deserve to see themselves in books, they deserve to have books that speak to and about them. And people outside the LGBTQ+ crowd need to read these books to get a fuller picture of what life is like for their queer friends and family.

And Greg Abbott and people like him are welcome to fuck off into the sun if they don’t have the humanity to recognize that. : )

Great book. I’d love to hang out with Mr. Johnson sometime, because he seems like a great guy and tells some fascinating stories.

Visit George M. Johnson’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Who I Was With Her by Nita Tyndall

Stephanie2 Comments

Secret time!

In high school, I had a terrible, terrible crush on this guy. It wasn’t something anyone really knew about; while we later became friends due more to circumstance than anything, I couldn’t even speak to him, couldn’t hardly look at him, my anxiety was so terrible. But hoooooooooo boy, did I like him, for years. And, because anxiety is so much fun, my brain worried about how I would cope if the unthinkable happened and he died. How would I manage my grief since no one knew how much I had liked him? How would I get through daily life carrying all that pain that no one had any reason to suspect I had? When I heard about the premise of Who I Was with Her by Nita Tyndall (HarperTeen, 2020), I gasped; someone had written my book, or a version of it! Immediately it went onto my TBR.

Who I Was with Her starts off with a moment of shock: Maggie is dead, a fact Corinne overhears from her cross country teammates, and which throws her into a full-blown nightmare, because Maggie was her girlfriend, a girlfriend no one knew she had. They’d been dating for a year, and, living in the south, Corinne hadn’t been comfortable coming out. She’d already had a lot on her plate, adjusting to living in a new place, her newly divorced parents, her alcoholic mother. Adding her community’s homophobia onto the pile felt like it was too much, so Corinne kept her bisexuality and Maggie under wraps.

But now Maggie is gone and Corinne’s grief is all-encompassing, but what do you do with grief no one knows you have? As Corinne begins to navigate life without Maggie, she gets to know Maggie’s brother and her ex-girlfriend (an ex Corinne had no idea existed), and she begins to confront some hard truths about who she is, what she wants, and what it takes to live authentically.

What a sad, heavy book, one that I’m so glad exists. Corinne is a complicated character; she has a lot going on in her life, and she doesn’t always make the best decisions, for herself or for others, but the decisions she makes are entirely understandable, given the context of what she’s been through the past few years. At times she can be selfish, but that’s what happens when your emotional needs aren’t taken into consideration by your parents; you’re forced to focus on yourself in order to survive. I dealt with some similar issues to Corinne when I was in high school and it still affects me to this day, so Corinne absolutely resonated with me.

The grief in this book is nearly tangible. Compound that with college stress, parent stress, school stress, sports stress, friend-group drama, and you have a main character who by all means should have been on the edge of a complete breakdown, but she does her best to hold it together, with not-always great outcomes. The book ends on a hopeful note; Maggie is obviously gone and never coming back, but Corinne has learned about herself, learned to advocate for herself, and has learned to be more honest, and she’s set for a better future. The pain is still there, but she has more tools to handle it, and the strong writing carries this to a bittersweet conclusion.

Who I Was with Her is a raw, honest book, one that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Visit Nita Tyndall’s website here.

Follow them on Twitter here.

graphic memoir

Book Review: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

Stephanie3 Comments

In my reading about censorship recently, I discovered that one of the books getting parents in a panic and calling for book burnings is the graphic memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (Oni Press, 2019). I had a friend, may his memory be a blessing, that identified as genderqueer, and so this title, beyond its status as a challenged book, immediately called out to me for that. And lo and behold, my beloved local library, who never shies away from filling its shelves with controversial books, had a copy. To my happiness, it was checked out (high five to whoever was reading it; I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!), so I put it on hold and it came in about a week and a half later.

Growing up the child of laid-back hippy-ish parents, Maia Kobabe, assigned female at birth and who uses the pronouns e/em/eir, never had gender restrictions placed on em, but e still felt like e didn’t fit into any of the gender boxes e knew of. Not only that, eir sexuality defied classification at the time; bisexual kind of fit, but e knew e didn’t have the interest in sexual activity eir classmates and friends had. Curiosity, maybe; desire to participate in sexual activity, ugh, not really.

What Maia did have, though, was a loving, accepting family, and the ability and freedom to discover who e was on eir own, the freedom to search for materials that contained the language e needed to be able to describe emself. Gender Queer is a beautifully illustrated graphic memoir of a young adult’s discomfort with eir body and gender presentation and the struggle to define emself in a society that insists everyone fits into tidy boxes with no spare bits or overlapping edges.

This is an incredibly brave memoir that needs to be on library shelves everywhere. Maia does an amazing job of conveying, in both words and illustration, the discomfort e felt with eir body especially as it matured into that of an adult female, something that never matched up with what e felt e truly was. There are kids out there who need books like this, who are feeling the way Maia felt and who don’t understand what this means and who don’t have anyone to talk to about it. Those are the kids who need to pluck this book off the shelf so they can hear that their experiences are valid, that they’re just as worthy of life and love as people whose identities match what they were assigned at birth, and that it’s okay to question who you are, what box you’re suppose to fit in (maybe not any box! Make your own box! That’s a perfectly valid option too!), why things are the way they are. They need to read Maia’s story and understand that they have a story worth sharing when they feel comfortable, and that there’s a place in this world for them, too.

It’s easy to see why people get uncomfortable with this book; there are frank discussions of gender, sex, sexual orientation, sexuality, pronoun use, gender dysphoria, menstrual periods, and more. But again, as I said in my review of Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts), these are things kids have questions about. If you’re sending them the message that they can’t talk to you or that their questions aren’t valid or are shameful, they’re going to go searching elsewhere for that information. Their friends might not have the correct, medically accurate information; the information they get from their friends might lead them to a dangerous place, whether in terms of physical health or emotional health. Where would you prefer them getting their information? Would you prefer a child who contemplates or commits suicide because the information they received damages their sense of self? Because unfortunately, we’ve created a society in which that is far too often the alternative for kids whose families don’t work to understand them and make them feel loved and accepted.

Gender Queer is a truly important book, one that teenagers and young adults should have access to. Even if they’re not actively questioning their gender, reading Maia’s story might help them understand what their friends and classmates are going through who are questioning or who have realized they don’t quite fit their assigned gender roles. And a little more understanding goes a long way.

What a brave, brave, important book.

Visit Maia Kobabe’s website here.

Follow em on Instagram here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) by Lev AC Rosen

Stephanie2 Comments

There’s been a lot going around lately about censorship- parents getting their drawers in a twist about the books available to their kids, folks calling for book burnings (I wish I were exaggerating there). BookRiot has a great article on how to fight censorship; I’ve started virtually attending my library’s board meetings because of this, just so I can be up to date with everything that’s going on and be prepared to lend a hand if needed (because yup, this is in my area as well). It was in that BookRiot article that I learned about Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts) by Lev AC Rosen (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2018). The article’s description of how a Christian group challenged the book piqued my curiosity and I put a hold on it at my library that day.

Jack Rothman is seventeen and the resident sex expert of his friend group. He’s queer, confident, and not afraid to be himself, whether that’s sporting a new shade of eyeliner, suggesting a one-time hook-up with another guy, or putting his very active sex life out there for everyone to read about in his new advice column for a not-school-sponsored website published by one of his best friends. He’s unapologetically himself at all times, which often makes him fodder for the school gossip mill, and which doesn’t always sit well with him, but he never lets it stop him from being who he is.

But Jack is getting letters- secret admirer letters, it seems at first, but then they take on a creepier bent. The author of the letter claims to love Jack, but they want to change him and everything that makes him him…and that’s not okay. When the letters start threatening his mother and the emotional health of his friends, Jack knows he has to figure out who’s sending these, and fast.

It’s easy to see why more conservative parents are clutching their pearls over this book. Jack is openly gay, loves sex of all kinds, and bends gender norms in order to most fully express himself- all things that sort of people dislike. (Cry me a river, folks. How other people choose to express themselves has, quite literally, NOTHING to do with you.) To be fully honest, when I first started reading this book, I was a little surprised as well- Lev Rosen doesn’t hold back at all. There are open, frank discussions of sex of all sorts- gay, straight, group, oral, and more- and reading this with my 41-year-old-parent-of-a-7-year-old-and-a-19-year-old eyes, my first instinct was to go, “WHOA.”

And then I stopped and thought about it.

What was I doing when I was Jack’s age, after years of attending a religious school?

OH YEAH. Working in a video rental store that also had a room for adult videos.

At 17, I was listening to hallway gossip about who slept with whom at weekend parties, and what dating couples at my school did and didn’t do sexually (to be fair, this kind of stuff started when I was like 13, at my very small religious school). Between that and the titles of the adult movies I rented out to various customers (including one man who later turned out to be very religious- which I learned because I started dating his son. Awkward), there wasn’t much in this book that I hadn’t heard about as a teenager, the intended audience of this book. How much more is this true for today’s teens, who have grown up as digital natives, with the internet and all its various contents piped directly into their homes and sometimes bedrooms 24/7?

If anything, this book exists not only to give kids the message that it’s a good thing to be yourself, no matter what that is, but to give kids correct information. All the advice Jack gives in his column and to his friends is safe, medically sound, and ethical. He speaks a lot about consent, respect, and not doing things unless you truly want to. He’s there to empower his readers in order for them to make the best decisions for themselves, with as much information possible. Kids are going to be getting information about sexual topics- they’re coming from all angles at kids these ages: friends, movies, the internet, the media. This book is, at the very least, unbiased and accurate in its information, and that’s what teenagers deserve. Teenagers have questions about sex. In the best-case scenario, they’ll come to us as parents with these questions, but it’s no surprise if they feel they can’t (and it’s our fault for not fostering the kind of relationship with them in which they feel they can come to us with those questions). If your kids don’t come to you, where do you want them getting that information? Because, guaranteed, they’ll get it, and the source might not be accurate, putting your child at risk.

Jack is a great character. He doesn’t waver in who he is, though he is spooked into toning it down a bit when his stalker ramps up their game and gets really creepy. He’s supportive of his friends (and knows when he’s hogging the limelight and needs to allow them space to shine). He’s honest, both with himself and with the people around him, and he does his best to bridge that awkward gap that exists between teenage boys and their mothers, even though it’s tough.

My only complaint with the book is the ending felt a little anti-climactic. The identity of Jack’s stalker felt a little out-of-nowhere for me. It left me just the tiniest bit deflated, after what was a truly excellent book about a teenager who exists outside most of what’s considered the norm and is entirely comfortable with that.

If you’re reading this book as an adult, my suggestion is to put your adult eyes away and dig out your teenage eyes, the ones you used when you were full of questions about life and sex and identity. Read it with the eyes of a teenager constantly bombarded with messages about what they’re supposed to do and who they’re supposed to be, with people shaming them for who they are and what they feel. My guess is that there are a lot of kids who will feel validated by this book, who will see that having questions and feelings about sex doesn’t make them bad or disgusting or sinful, it makes them developmentally normal.

If your instinct is that this book doesn’t belong on the shelves at all, that no one’s kids should be reading it, that’s a you problem. If you don’t want YOUR kids reading it, that’s on you as a parent. BE A PARENT and monitor your kid’s reading materials- that’s your prerogative as a parent and I fully support your right to allow or not allow this book in your home. But your rights end there, and the availability of this book at local libraries has nothing to do with you. If you don’t like it, don’t check it out. If you don’t want your teenager reading it, monitor what they’re bringing home from the library. But parent your own child, not everyone else’s. That’s not your job, and you’re not making the world any safer by ensuring that other teens have less information.

I commend Lev Rosen for the bravery it took to write this book and put it out there, knowing the kind of stir it would cause. Thank you for being the voice teenagers need and answering the questions a lot of them have nowhere else to ask.

Visit Lev AC Rosen’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France

Stephanie5 Comments

I was born in 1980; for people born in my generation, there’s never been a time where AIDS hasn’t existed. I remember first learning about the deadly virus in fifth grade, when my class watched a video featuring Magic Johnson, and my teacher (who was one of the best teachers I ever had) led a class discussion afterwards. In my life, AIDS has gone from an absolute death sentence to a chronic health condition that can be managed with one pill a day (for some folks). The implications of that are enormous. One of the books I recommend most is And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts; it was because I love that book so much that I wanted to read a more recently-written story about the people behind the long, painful journey to an effective treatment for AIDS. I knew as soon as I heard about How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France (Knopf, 2013), I had to read it. At over 500 pages of narrative, it’s a dense, hefty read, but it’s well worth your time.

David France has chronicled the emotional odyssey of the late seventies through the mid-nineties for the New York gay community, from the first few deaths that rang alarm bells and alerted people that some terrible new illness was going around, to the final triumphant moments when an effective treatment was finally on the horizon. The path to that triumph is littered with dead bodies, pain, horrific suffering (both physical and emotional), ruined lives, and grief; it was also lined with friendship, camaraderie, infighting, broken friendships, and young adults coming into their own amidst terrible tragedy.

The government ignored them (“It only affects gay people, so just let it take them out”). Their families abandoned them. Their health providers often turned them away. Hospitals refused AIDS patients treatment. Funeral homes refused to care for their wasted bodies. Scientists didn’t see their suffering as a priority. But the gay community refused to face death sitting down; their voices rose to a fever pitch and remained there, even throughout their grief and suffering, until finally, finally, after so much loss and death, the people who could help began to listen. It would take over 100,000 American deaths for an effective treatment to finally arrive.

This is a moving, tragic, infuriating, and beautifully written narrative of a time in history that should never, ever have happened. It’s horrifying how easily the United States is willing to throw its own citizens away (and this happens in so, so many aspects); it was more than willing to write off the endless suffering of the gay community, telling them they had brought this on themselves and it was God’s punishment (in Judaism, there’s a term for this kind of behavior, which translates to ‘desecration of the name of God;’ I think it fits in this instance. Using God to justify someone else’s suffering, while you stand idly by and mock them? Yeah. It fits).

Author David France pops into the story now and then, as he was in the midst of it all, attending meetings and protests, caring for sick friends and lovers, and grieving many, many losses (people losing hundreds of friends wasn’t uncommon). This adds a personal touch to the story which gives it emotional depth; it’s not all protests, emotionally charged meetings, and observations from afar. This is a story observed up close; it’s personal to him, and he makes sure the reader knows it.

How to Survive a Plague is a heavy, emotional read, but it’s well worth your time.

Visit David France’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar

Stephanie3 Comments

A while back, there was an epic Twitter thread on all of (or at least, a LOT of) the books by South Asian authors coming out in 2020, and hoooooooooooooo boy, did a lot of books get added to my TBR that day! One of those books included The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (Page Street Kids, 2020). This book has it all: South Asian characters. LGBT rep. Strong sister relationship. Drama with the parents. Set in…Ireland??? NEAT! It’s been a while since I read fiction set there. Anyway, I finally got to it on my TBR and enjoyed the long days of reading it on my backyard swing (while sweating half to death, of course, because it’s super gross out here right now).

Nishat has come out to her parents, with less-than-stellar results. While there’s no screaming, no threatening, no plans to send her away, they’re cool, chilly, unable to understand why she can’t just change everything about who she is. Unexpectedly, Flávia, a friend she hasn’t seen since early grade school, shows back up in her life, and suddenly, Nishat’s in love. Only there’s a slight problem: Flávia turns out to be the cousin of Nishat’s archenemy at school. Ugh. No worries, though. Nishat’s not even sure if Flávia likes her that way, although signs are pointing to yes…

A business class project has the students forming their own businesses and competing over whose is more successful. Nishat decides, as a nod to her culture, to begin doing henna (painting henna designs on hands). She’s horrified to learn that Flávia, who is not Bengali (she’s Brazilian and Irish), has planned to do the same. Holy cultural appropriation, folks! Sabotage. Theft. Underhandedness. Destruction. Things get a little out of control in this competition, and Nishat isn’t always the person she wants to be. Nishat and her classmates have a lot to learn about and from each other, and maybe Mom and Dad will learn a few things as well.

There’s a lot going on in this story- Nishat’s relationship with her sister Priti, the pressure of exams at school, trying to maintain a relationship with a grandparent over Skype, race-based bullying, fighting with a friend group, a strained relationship with parents over cultural issues, cultural appropriation- but somehow, it all works. Nishat is a typical teenager who doesn’t always make the best choices; she’s impulsive under pressure, a little selfish at times, and occasionally leaps to conclusions. But she’s also dedicated and optimistic, and all of this makes her a well-rounded character.

Her relationship with younger sister Priti, who is sometimes the more mature of the two, is the kind that will make you wish you had a younger sister (if you don’t. I do not). Priti stands by her side no matter what, is always there to support her and offer up whatever Nishat needs, and calls her on her selfish behavior when the situation warrants it. Priti is very much the voice of reason here, and I loved her.

The bullying is painful to read. There are obvious content warnings here for racism and homophobia, and one for a forced outing, which can be upsetting (kudos to Ms. Jaigirdar, who has this warning written into the opening pages. I love that these kinds of heads-ups are becoming the norm). When you’re able to handle these topics, this is a kaleidoscope of a novel, with all the issues moving and sliding around each other to become one colorful design that fits together perfectly.

Super fun YA with great multi-dimensional characters in an interesting setting. I’m looking forward to reading more from Ms. Jaigirdar.

Visit Adiba Jaigirdar’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.