It’s time for the second installment of the YA community’s favorite queer-themed books! Check out these awesome reviews from some more of our favorite authors!
LEE BANTLE on ANNIE ON MY MIND by Nancy Garden
This is a must read! The writing and story are beautiful. If you want literature, if 
you want great writing, this book is for you. And if you’re a girl who thinks you might like other girls, check out this love story. Oh my. I aspire to write like Nancy Garden. She is lyrical. A Lambda Literary Award winner. She has many other titles if you like this one.
LEE BANTLE on REFLECTIONS OF A ROCK LOBSTER by Aaron Fricke
This book has faded and deserves revival. Nonfiction. Aaron took a boy to his prom. In 1980! Way before people were doing that. And then wrote the story. What guts! A pioneer. Fulfilling and historic, this memoir is another must read.
LEE BANTLE on TALE OF TWO SUMMERS by Brian Sloan
A delicious summer read. This book keeps you hooked. Hilarious, sexy and surprising, it’s the story of tw
o friends — Hal and Chuck (one straight and one gay) — apart for the summer, who keep in intimate contact through a blog. Hal’s tales with Henri (the French bad boy) will leave you panting for more. This is not Nobel prize material, but a very satisfying beach read.
LEE BANTLE on WEETZIE BAT by Francesca Lia Block
Magical realism comes to gay LA. Anything by Block is a quick, fun, uplifting read. She gets it. There is depth. The perfect book for one of those sleepovers when you never go to sleep.
Lee Bantle is the author of Diving for the Moon and David Inside Out, which just came out in May.
SUSAN JUBY on SKIM by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki
The coolest graphic novel in recent memory is Skim, words by Mariko Tamaki and drawings by Ji
llian Tamaki. It features the funniest, most deadpan (and sometimes bitter) young goth with broken he
art and thought-bubbles full of piercing one-liners and heartbreakingly honest observations. Captures perfectly the confusion and excitement of first love (queer and otherwise) and the combination horror/gong show that is high school. The drawings are nothing short of gorgeous. After reading this book a few times, you’re going to want to hang it on your wall.
Susan Juby is the author of many novels for young adults, including Another Kind of Cowboy, Alice, I Think, and, her latest, Getting the Girl.
BRENT HARTINGER on LUNA by Julie Anne Peters
Want to know how to write a young adult novel? Read this book. It is the work of a master author of teen books, at the very peak o
f her career. Others have written about the landmark nature of
the book’s transgender theme (and I agree with all their praise). But an equally exceptional aspect of this book is the fact that the struggle and journey of the main character, who is not transgender, but who lives in the emotional “shadow” of her transgender brother, is just as fascinating as that of the brother. Regan is a prickly, often angry kid–not your usual plucky YA heroine. But the resulting story is one of the truthful, and riveting, teen books I’ve read in years.
Brent Hartinger is the author of Geography Club and its sequel The Order of the Poison Oak, Split Screen: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies as well as his latest, Project Sweet Life.
Madeline
Meghan
peterwesley