Book Review – YA Pride

Book Review: INKMISTRESS by Audrey Coulthurst

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:08-05:00March 13th, 2018|Categories: Book Club, Book Review|Tags: Bisexual, Fantasy, New Releases, Queer Girls|

Asra is a demigod with a dangerous gift: the ability to dictate the future by writing with her blood. To keep her power secret, she leads a quiet life as a healer on a remote mountain, content to help the people in her care and spend time with Ina, the mortal girl she loves. But Asra’s peaceful life is upended when bandits threaten Ina’s village and the king does nothing to help. Desperate to protect her people, Ina begs Asra for assistance in finding her manifest—the animal she’ll be able to change into as her [...]

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Review: Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:08-05:00February 27th, 2018|Categories: Book Review|

By Julianne Daly Alice had her whole summer planned. Non-stop all-you-can-eat buffets while marathoning her favorite TV shows (best friends totally included) with the smallest dash of adulting--working at the library to pay her share of the rent. The only thing missing from her perfect plan? Her girlfriend (who ended things when Alice confessed she's asexual). Alice is done with dating--no thank you, do not pass go, stick a fork in her, done. But then Alice meets Takumi and she can’t stop thinking about him or the rom com-grade romance feels she did not ask for (uncertainty, butterflies, [...]

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Review: A Harvest of Ripe Figs by Shira Glassman

By Jennifer|2020-03-28T13:40:34-05:00August 16th, 2016|Categories: Book Review|Tags: Fantasy, lesbian, LGBTQIA, New Adult, Non Binary, PoC, Queer Girls, Romance, Trans|

by Jennifer Polish Cover page for A Harvest of Ripe Figs, by Shira Glassman. A red parchment-esque background behind a violin, its bow, and several purple figs, one of which is sliced in half, its lush red insides facing the front. Esther of the Singing Hands is Perach’s Sweetheart, a young and beautiful musician with a Girl Next Door image. When her violin is stolen after a concert in the capital city, she doesn't expect the queen herself to show up, intent upon solving the mystery. But Queen Shulamit--lesbian, intellectual, and mother of the six month [...]

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GayYA Recommends: You Know Me Well by David Levithan & Nina Lacour

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 5th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Book Club, Book Review, New Releases, Readers on Reading, Teen Voices|Tags: gay, lesbian, Representation|

Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really? Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed. That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with [...]

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Juliet Takes a Breath: A How-To Guide for Young Queer Latinas

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:40:49-05:00June 5th, 2016|Categories: Archive, Blogathon 2016, Book Review, New Releases|Tags: Latinx, PoC, Queer Girls, Realistic|

by Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, PhD Juliet Milagros Palante is a 19-year-old Puertoriqueña from the Bronx. She knows she’s gay but hasn’t told her family. She decides to come out to her family the night she’s set to travel to Portland, Oregon[1] for her summer internship with the renowned white feminist Harlowe Brisbane. After having read Harlowe’s book Raging Flower: Empowering Pussy by Empowering Your Mind, Juliet is convinced Harlowe is the only one that can help her understand her new gay identity. Juliet is in for a rude awakening and finds solace in unexpected places. Juliet Takes a [...]

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Review: Street Dreams by Tama Wise

By Marilla|2020-03-28T13:41:32-05:00June 26th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: gay, Intersectionality, PoC, Queer Guys, Realistic|

by Nathaniel Harrington Street Dreams (Bold Strokes Press 2012) From Goodreads: Tyson Rua has more than his fair share of problems growing up in South Auckland. Working a night job to support his mother and helping bring up his two younger brothers is just the half of it. His best friend Rawiri is falling afoul of a broken home, and now Tyson's fallen in love at first sight. Only thing is, it's another guy. Living life on the sidelines of the local hip-hop scene, Tyson finds that to succeed in becoming a local graffiti artist or [...]

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Review: Hold Still by Nina LaCour

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:41:39-05:00May 29th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: Minor Characters, Queer Girls, Realistic|

reviewed by Marie Hagen of MarietheLibrarian Hold Still by Nina Lacour Hold Still | Nina LaCour | 231 pages | Paperback | With illustrations Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic fiction Themes: Death, friendship, loss, suicide Goodreads rating: 3.99 Synopsis: Hold Still tells the story of Caitlin who recently lost her best friend Ingrid, to suicide. Ingrid and Caitlin shared everything together, and Caitlin is facing an unknown life without her best friend to laugh, cry and share her secrets with. One day Caitlin finds Ingrids journal under her bed, and through her journal, Caitlin gets to [...]

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Graphic Novel Review: Lumberjanes.

By Nadia|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 16th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: Fantasy, graphic novel, Intersectionality, LGBTQIA, Middle Grade, PoC, Queer Girls|

Lumberjanes (Boom! Studios, 2014) One of the biggest challenges I face when reading, reviewing and now, publishing, is to find balance in the types of queers stories I read/review/publish. It often feels to me that the vast majority of what is out there - and what is made more visible when it comes to reviewing and award-winning - are the stories that deal with violence, homophobia, or the ones where being queer is the story. Don’t get me wrong, because those? Are super important and should be told, read and talked about. But equally important in [...]

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Book Review: None Of The Above by I.W. Gregorio

By Kale|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 14th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review|Tags: Intersex|

by Alexandra von Klan from Inter/Act Youth None of the Above is GayYA's book of the month. Grab a copy now and get ready to discuss later this month in our book club twit chat! None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio (Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins, 2015) Within the vast realm of young adult novels, I’m an amateur reader. I’ve yet to devour the Hunger Games trilogy and, up until a week ago, I had zero point of reference to John Green (although, after looking him up, I sobbed during the trailer for [...]

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M.E. Kerr and Deliver Us from Evie

By Helen|2020-03-28T13:41:48-05:00May 12th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Book Review, Guest Blogs|Tags: classics, Queer Girls|

by Sara Zarr I knew about M.E. Kerr long before I read her. When I was growing up in the seventies and making regular visits to our neighborhood library, there was a beat-up paperback on the spinning rack of “teen fiction” that caught my eye: Dinky Hockey Shoots Smack by M.E. Kerr (HarperCollins Publishers, 1989) DINKY HOCKER SHOOTS SMACK! How could I not notice a title like that? The cover image had the title spray-painted across a brick wall like graffiti. At age nine or ten I made a mental note to myself to read that [...]

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