Book Review – Page 4

Review: The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 10th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review, Teen Voices|Tags: Bisexual, Polyamory|

A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil. The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that's sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June's best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a [...]

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Jack by Shannon LC Cate: review by Simren Handa

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: PoC, Small Press|

Mama doesn't like boys, but Jack's not like most boys. Born a girl during the Civil War, Jack has been passing as a boy in the slums of Five Points, Manhattan, since running away from an orphans' home at age eight. He makes his living at petty thievery, surviving pocket watch-to-pocket watch until he discovers a talent for gambling. Lucy is a bright girl trapped in a dreary life with her widowed mother. When she meets Jack on the street, her days are happier than they have ever been. But her heart is broken when mother takes her [...]

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Review: Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 6th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review|Tags: Speculative|

First things first, this a beautiful book. You don't even need to read it to realise that it's beautiful: you can tell by the way the dust jacket is all textured and pretty, with the letters jutting out and being bumpy underneath your fingers. It is a gradient turquoise sky, a stormy sea, and a splash of orange that's like the splash of hope this book will provide for the queer teenagers who read it or have read it. Our August 2014 Book of the Month! It's a reimagining of Homer's Odyssey, which is incredible in [...]

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REVIEW: Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin

By admin|2020-03-28T13:42:42-05:00July 4th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Club, Book Review, Teen Voices|

SILHOUETTE OF A SPARROW is GayYA’s July Book of the Month. We are giving away a signed copy in our monthly raffle, which you can enter HERE! Upon opening Silhouette of a Sparrow, I took its first-person narrative as a tragic misstep, which is the case in many YA novels I have read (or, attempted to read). I was pleasantly mistaken, and by chapter 2, I was hooked. Silhouette of a Sparrow is narrated by 16-year-old Garnet Richardson, a bird-lover with a curious mind and an honest voice, who is sent to stay with relatives, the Harringtons, over the summer while [...]

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The Cross-Dresser in YA Literature

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:43-05:00June 12th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Book Review|

First let me say that I’m very happy and honored to be writing a blog post for Gay YA. What I’d like to talk about today is the representation of cross-dressers in YA literature. Though transgender characters are becoming easier to find, cross-dressing characters are not. Why is this? I think it represents our prejudices as a society. I truly believe that cross-dressers are one of the most marginalized and misunderstood segments of the population today. I’m thinking specifically of teen cross-dressers. Gay and transgender kids have support groups, but CD teens have very few if any resources. Representation of [...]

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Book Review: Caught in the Crossfire by Juliann Rich

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:43-05:00June 3rd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|

Juliann Rich’s debut novel Caught in the Crossfire is a new and much needed story in Gay YA literature. The book is about a gay teen who is a devout Christian, and struggling to reconcile those two things. We first meet Jonathan at the beginning of a month long bible camp. At the beginning of the story, Jonathan is aware of his feelings for guys, but not too eager to try and understand them. We’re also introduced to Ian, the love interest, quite early. Ian, we learn, is also gay and is much more outspoken about gay rights. [...]

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Review of FAR FROM YOU by Tess Sharpe

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:44-05:00May 6th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|

FAR FROM YOU is GayYA's May Book of the Month. We're giving away a signed copy to two lucky winners in our giveaway, which you can enter here, and discussing the book as we read through it together here. Later in the month, you can look forward to an interview from Tess Sharpe and a TwitChat inspired by the book. Review: FAR FROM YOU by Tess Sharpe You guys are all bookish people, so I'm sure you know (and savour) the feeling of being so wrapped up in a book that opening it feels like your very own [...]

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Review: Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:44-05:00May 1st, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review|

Review by Alex Mccoy Craig and Harry, ex-boyfriends, are trying to break the Guinness World Record for longest kiss. Peter and Neil, who've been dating for a while, are trying to figure out whether they're too familiar with one another. Ryan and Avery have just met and are tentatively (but excitedly) starting something new. And Cooper just wants to stop being so lonely and feeling so misunderstood. In *Two Boys Kissing*, the stories of each of these boys are told from the unique perspective of a group of gay men that have lost their lives to AIDS in [...]

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YA Latina Lesbians: On Mayra Lazara Dole’s Down to the Bone

By Sonia|2020-03-28T13:42:44-05:00January 14th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review|Tags: lesbian, PoC, Queer Girls|

by Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez Down to the Bone (Harper Teen & Bella Books, 2012) In Mayra Lazara Dole’s [1] Down to the Bone (2012) Laura, a Cuban-American high school junior, is forced to come-out when her Catholic school teacher reads Laura’s private texts to her girlfriend aloud to the entire class. As a result, Laura is humiliated, kicked out of school, and asked by her mother to leave their home. Dole’s description of Laura’s coming-out is significant, among many reasons, because it centers a Latina lesbian protagonist. Despite the increased awareness for the need of diverse [...]

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Review: THE WAITING TREE

By BookishMeg|2020-03-28T13:42:47-05:00May 14th, 2013|Categories: Archive, Book Review|

The Waiting Tree by Lindsay Moynihan Every teenager on the planet deals with it -- Drama. School drama, family drama, relationship drama, and it's all dramatic. But in the debut novel The Waiting Tree by Lindsay Moynihan, Simon Peters's drama is anything but typical. Thankfully, it's not dramatically cliche, and is instead dramatically hopeful When Simon's parents are suddenly killed in a traffic accident, he and his older brothers can't find a way to keep their lives on the smooth path that now has a rift. Paul, the oldest, takes on the nickname of The Captain but cannot find a way to [...]

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