Even as a teen, I never read much YA. I think I was too busy processing my own angst to live vicariously through fictional scenarios. More recently I have come to appreciate the genre. There is a theory that all literature is about the hero’s journey from innocence to experience. This is certainly true for YA, where characters are encountering many emotions for the first time.
There is also a growing canon of queer YA. It differs from standard YA only in the sense that the dilemmas involve issues that are unique to the LGBTQ experience, such as transphobia, coming out, and internalized hatred.
Here are reviews of two recent LGBTQ YA titles.
1.
Who I Was With Her is about Corrine, a high school runner who is a closeted bisexual. She is secretly dating Maggie, a track competitor from another school, who is killed in a car accident just before the opening chapter. Corrine privately grieves while socializing with Elissa, one of Maggie’s exes.
This is an interior novel, told in alternating chapters in the past and present. We get to see Maggie in flashback, which is not always the case in books like this. There is also a subplot about Corrine’s efforts to get into college on a runner’s scholarship.
Despite the LGBT content, there was something slightly old-fashioned about this narrative. It reminded me a bit of Norma Klein. I’m sorry to say I was not terribly invested.
2.
On the surface, Felix Ever After is a familiar rom-com that just happens to have a trans male protagonist. Felix Love, an art student with dreams of Brown-RISD, is anonymously bullied by a transphobic classmate at his NYC school. Suspecting his nemesis Declan is behind it, Felix catfishes him on Instagram only to discover the kid has more depth than he assumed.
In a more standard plot, Felix and Declan would fall in love and have their relationship tested when the deception is outed. Instead, author Kacen Callender mixes it up with twists that are both surprising and satisfying. Felix Ever After will easily make it on my “best of” list for the year.
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