Teen Voices – Page 3

Why the Angst? Where’s the Gay?

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:28-05:00October 17th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Teen Voices|Tags: gay, Queer Guys|

We're thrilled to welcome one of our new regular contributors, Karina Rose! If you’ve heard of the internet, or magazines, or television, or know a lonely female, then you’ve heard at least something about Fifty Shades of Grey, the Twilight fanfic turned best-selling novel that sold over 100 million copies, despite the fact that it is poorly written, misrepresents an entire subculture, enables suffering amongst female readers, and, I cannot emphasize this enough, is based off of Twilight fanfiction. I wish I were joking. The book itself has been called “a joke”. But I think it’s a joke that has [...]

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Review of Searching for Grace by Juliann Rich

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00October 2nd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|Tags: Religion|

At the end of Caught in the Crossfire I was convinced I would not last until Searching for Grace... and the end of Searching for Grace has left me in the exact same state. I believe the email I sent Juliann said something along the lines of "I NEED TAKING THE STAND LIKE YESTERDAY." Like the first book in the Crossfire Trilogy, Caught in the Crossfire, Searching for Grace is an amazingly unique and honest portrayal of a teen walking the line between his sexuality and his faith. As some of you know, I have walked a similar path. The experience [...]

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Review: Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 30th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Book Review, Teen Voices|Tags: lesbian, New Releases, PoC, Queer Girls, Religion|

by Laurel May When I heard this book was about an interracial lesbian couple living in the 1950's I immediately wanted it. I was just blown away by the idea of this story! Now that I have read it, I am blown away by the actual story. What an exceptional book! "Lies We Tell Ourselves" is not an easy read. You only have to look at the time period to understand why that is. This book is set in 1959, after the desegregation of Little Rock School. Here, Sarah and 10 other black students are the first to [...]

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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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Minor Queer Characters in YA

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 5th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: Representation|

The unfortunate truth is that most mainstream YA centres around a boy-girl romance with maybe a bit of magic or tragedy or dystopian violence thrown in. That's it. There's very little room on the Teen Fiction shelves at Barnes & Noble for books about girls who kiss girls or boys that kiss boys simply because - apparently - the readership isn't quite "ready" for those themes yet. Now, obviously, I understand that Barnes & Noble (and other bookshops) can't physically make their shops any bigger just to please the fairly minuscule percentage of their readers that are a) [...]

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We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox Part 3

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00September 5th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: asexual, Bisexual, Representation, Stereotypes|

There are people who partially fit the stereotypes of their sexuality (butch lesbians, effeminate gay men, sex-repulsed asexuals, etc.) but in media they are often presented as caricatures. These negative portrayals in media lead to real-life queer people who fit these stereotypes being attacked by other queer people, mostly due to the fear of exposing the MOGII community as a whole to the negativity attached to those stereotypes. In both fiction and in real life, all members of the MOGII community deserve to be respected and respectfully represented, regardless of how they express themselves. Instead of telling MOGII people [...]

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We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox Part 2

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 22nd, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: Representation|

Editors note: Part One of the We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox mini-series addressed background MOGII characters in media, and why there is no good excuse to leave out queer characters. In Part Two, Emily K, one of our Teen Voices, goes further into this, looking specifically at speculative fiction. This series updates every Friday, and will be wrapping up the first week of September. It doesn’t stop at just a lack of queer characters. Many YA speculative fiction books take place in worlds where the existence of MOGII people isn’t even considered. The possibilities in world-building for [...]

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We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox Part 1

By Vee|2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00August 8th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Guest Blogs, Teen Voices|Tags: Minor Queer Characters, Representation|

Editor's note: We are so excited to be hosting this mini-series We Are Not Just a Diversity Checkbox. It will be updated every Friday and wrap up the last week of August. Emily K, one of our Teen Voices will be talking about MOGII (Marginalized Orientation, Gender Identity, and Intersex) representation in YA, specifically minority characters, and others that are included more or less to check us off. When the hype for Disney’s animated feature “Frozen” was at its peak, many people were exuberant over the male store owner having a husband and children who were shown for two [...]

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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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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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