LEE WIND'S PAGE: The Different Kind series, A DIFFERENT KIND OF BRAVE & A DIFFERENT KIND OF ENEMY

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ENEMY (Different Kind series: Book Two)
LEE WIND
Interlude Press - Duet Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: An anomaly in space has stopped in Earth’s path in a way not accounted for by astronomical physics. Is it aliens? With only six days before inevitable contact, newly married teen spies Nicolas “Nico” Hall and Samuel “Sam” Solomon are enlisted to investigate—each young man sworn to secrecy even from the other.

Nico is in the field looking for answers and tracking a mysterious Person of Interest. Sam is working first contact scenarios on the thirteenth floor of a Manhattan building that doesn’t officially have a thirteenth floor. And they're both wondering if the rules of love change if it’s the end of the world.

As humanity slips into the grip of alien invasion panic, Nico and Sam realize they're going to have to work together to save the world—and their marriage.

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My Review: Oh boy.

SF plots really, really do not work this way in 2026. If I suggested fifteen as the target reader for book one, this one's maybe thirteen, and only if not a reader of SF. The number of ways I could think of for a mildly motivated fifteen-year-old to circumvent the ridiculous rules keeping the boys artificially apart...! Plus, how'd they get MARRIED? And why? And how'd they embed themselves in these inredibly high-stakes shenanigans?

Middle grade readers are most likely to roll with the incongruities. Even there I slightly hesitate because married teenagers? Who use worty dirds? Who have intimate talks? I don't know a lot of parents likely to be too terribly comfortable with that idea! Still...the right thirteen-year-old, maybe.

More accurately the right parent of a middle-grader. Or an older teen who's not interested in SF?

For me the read was never going to reach great heights of esteem because I've been reading SF for decades and this ignores realities of science at every turn. Yes, it's a fantastical premise from giddy-up to whoa but...well, you see how badly mismatched to the read I was.

I was glad to see Nico and Sam in something that felt more like a close relationship because they're each so deeply lonely. They come across as real, genuine friends, people I could imagine had things to talk about and thoughts to share.

There's a message I can solidly back sending to young gay lads and lesbian lasses.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A DIFFERENT KIND OF BRAVE (Different Kind series: Book One)
LEE WIND
Interlude Press - Duet Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Nicolas “Nico” Hall is sixteen when he escapes from Dr. H’s religious gay reprogramming institute in California. On his own, he assumes one identity after another to avoid recapture as he flees south to Peru and then to Mexico.

Seven days older than Nico, Samuel “Sam” Jonas Solomon is a privileged Upper West Side only child who idolizes James Bond. When his heart is broken, he vows that, like Bond, he’s never going to trust in love again. Then he meets Nico, and his heart won’t listen to any logic.

Nico’s survived by living only for himself—until his love for Sam has him risking his freedom for others. And as much as Sam wants to be like 007, he discovers that James Bond is a terrible role model.

Together, Nico and Sam set out to free the other teens trapped in Dr. H’s Institute, plunging readers into perils, drama, and a long-shot chance at love. To succeed, they’ll both have to be A Different Kind of Brave.

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My Review: First in a YA coming-of-age series dealing with the horrors of conversion "therapy," which one of our young heroes escapes from in a very high-stakes way. Nico is forced into conversion "therapy" as he is kicked out of the foster family he's lived with in the care system. His running away from the horrors of the place puts him in the path of James Bond-obsessed Sam on a Mexican beach. The two create major sparks, though this being aimed at YA readers you know there's no steamy stuff happenin'. I didn't miss it...the boys are sixteen, how interesting can their sex be?...but I enjoyed Nico's PoV because he was so driven by the need to stay the hell out of the conversion "therapy" at all costs. He comes to fully understand how urgent it is for him to rescue the others left behind in the clutches of the monstrous religious nuts hell-bent on torturing kids into "straightness" through his deeply touching connection to a sexually-safe, neutered by ALS, man called Warren whose bucket list Nico makes possible for Warren to enjoy by being a gelping, caring friend. Nico *gets* how urgently he needs to get the inmates of conversion therapy out of their doul-destroying captivity; he also hatches the (utterly implausible) plan for how.

Sam isn't quite so deeply shaded a portrait. We lean heavily on his fixated adniration for 007 as his major affect on his surroundings. We know he's struggling with his wealthy parents' failures to, well, parent, and the awful void of identity that leaves in Sam. He fills it with the borrowed bravado of 007 from the film franchise. He's constantly name-checking the particular film that inspired him to acquire a specific item. It's a great way to show how very badly young people need connections and models to become functional adults. As a privileged kid with essentially unlimited money, he's well-placed to help Nico complete his rescue plans. The time these boys spend together in the course of the book was less than I myownself had expected. I'd rate it more highly had I not felt a bit misled by their parallel narrative strands, when they're billed as a duo.

Setting aside the literally not-credible way the teens are able to pull off a complex rescue operation tat's well beyond the present Administration's War Department's capacity, we have one other big issue: sticking the landing. Does the result feel as though it could've happened IRL? No. Does it feel as though the two guys really worked it out, thought it through? Here, I can't be quite so dismissive. It honestly surprised me how often I thought Nico had concerns I can only wish our US politicos could factor into their hare-brained actions. A pair of queer teens acting the parts of Bond heroes, pulling off a major humanitarian coup...well, that's excellent fun, so I let go of my desire yo have it all make sense on a practical level.

It was way more fun to watch Tom Ripley play spycraft games with 007. Your fifteen-year-old bored-by-summer gay nibling might get a chuckle and find a lot to chew over too.

LITTLE F, On the Road for Queer youth

LITTLE F(aggot)
MICHELLE TEA
The Feminist Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.95 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A new epic novel about a teenage queer runaway from cult classic author of Blackwave and Valencia Michelle Tea.

In Spencer’s fantasies, the breezy, queer streets of Provincetown, MA, are utopia, a place where he can be free. Yet when a violent attack in his suburban Arizona schoolyard sends him to the hospital, he decides queer utopia can’t wait. And one night, with the help of his best friend, the teenage witch Joy, he hitches a ride to find it.

The cross-country road odyssey that follows brings Spencer from new moon rituals in Arizona canyons to Texas bus stations, from the luxe drag stages of Houston’s Montrose district to the jazz-soaked streets of the French Quarter and beyond. This new novel from Michelle Tea tells the story, by turns raw, romantic, and sweet, of a sheltered boy taking his first leap into queer life, among all the complicated queers who live it.

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My Review: Road novels lend themselves beautifully to the coming-of-age genre. In a road novel, the main character is by definition seeking some unknown, longed-for thing...adulthood is that thing, the long-dreamed-of delights of not being under someone else's thumb, making your own decisions....

I know, I know, it's as far from reality as a time-travel novel is. The traveler/comer-of-age doesn't know that (yet) so let it ride while the trip educates the youth into disillusionment's many pleasures. ...wait...pleasures? Spencer is, like so many of us formerly young queer lads going to run head-first into reality and find it pretty good.

Escaping homophobia is not possible, but getting out of a bully's sights is not a bad idea. As Spencer moves to other peoples' whims, aka hitchhikes, to get to Provincetown, the world shows him a bright face. He meets people who help him, in spite of taking him away from the direction he's set; lots of endearing, heartfelt chats; sleeping on couches (my back twinged just typing it); finding his first reciprocated love.

A lovely story, but not one we haven't read before (over thirty, anyway), so best really as a gift for your sweet young giftee. You know the one...not ready to come out; not ready for The Talk; but turning life over in their mind painfully loudly.

Give them this book to give those gears a bit of "others before you have been there, here's what they say about it" lubrication before you, their parents, and the rest of us go deaf.

L.R. LAM's Micah Grey series: SHADOWPLAY, & PANTOMIME

SHADOWPLAY (Micah Grey #2)
L.R. LAM
DAW Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, preorder for delivery tomorrow

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In the second installment of the Micah Grey Trilogy from the award-winning, USA Today-bestselling author of Dragonfall, Micah must learn two types of magic—one for the stage, and one with deadlier consequences—while navigating a tender new love.

Old magics are waking. Will the world survive their return?

Micah Grey almost died when he fled the circus with Drystan. Now he and the ex-clown must use Glamours to disguise themselves and hide in the once-grand Kymri Theatre, run by a once-renowned magician, Jasper Maske. Drystan claims Maske’s stage magic is all smoke and mirrors, but where’s the line between trickery and real power?

Micah and Drystan will soon learn the answer, when Maske's arch-nemesis challenges them all to a duel that will seal all their fates.

Meanwhile, the Shadow still haunts Micah’s steps, and as the duel draws near, Micah increasingly suffers from dark visions. Events that destroyed the ancient world are being replayed. Can Micah's latent powers break this deadly pattern?

In this rich and evocative second novel of the Micah Grey series, L.R. Lam blends a coming-of-age story, queer romance, and magical powers into a charming and original fantasy world, inspired by Victorian Scotland.

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My Review: Second book in a trilogy about Gene/Micah and his path to fully inhabiting an intersex identity, this YA novel, as revised, comes out tomorrow.

Much interesting information about Micah's heritage, intersex being, and magical ability is revealed in this story. While I was often reminded forcefully of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, I was more than ever pleased by the exploration beyond heteronormative boundaries as Micah, Drystan (I always read this as Dristan, an old allergy medication).

We're out of the circus now for Reasons (read the first one!), and into a theater where Drystan's old...connection Jasper takes the two in, agrees to educate them in magic, and...well...the story takes off. I confess I'd've liked staying in the circus permaybehaps a bit more, but the change allows the story's stakes to change in some fun ways. Restricting the secondary characters was a help to my focus, I quit wondering about people we hadn't seen in a while, but conversely I felt like Micah was flatter now that the high-wire was replaced by seances and illusions. I get it...I am not unclear on what's being said, down off the wire and in people's faces it takes more than physical skill it takes training and planning and cunning to achieve the goal of getting along as an Other.

Because we're in a less hectic setting we also get to hear and think more about the world outside. That bonus comes with some unpleasant realizations. It's never very nice to learn that humans are rotten, but it comes at quite a cost this time. I further confess I was a little worried that there would be a love triangle when a new character, Cyan, showed up; happily there is no sign of that yet.

I would've become the biggest Potterhead-level stan of these stories as a teen! They're aimed right at the sweet spot of self-discovery, self-acceptance, and learning to form deep bonds. I'll hope to get volume three, Masquerade, before it comes out in March 2026.

Four more solid stars!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PANTOMIME (Micah Grey #1)
L.R. LAM
DAW Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$15.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the USA Today-bestselling author of Dragonfall comes a fantasy trilogy about a circus aerialist's quest to escape his past and decipher the magical prophecy that will shape his future

In a land of lost wonders, the past is stirring once more . . .

Micah runs away from a debutante’s life at home and joins the circus, harboring two secrets–one: he was born between male and female, and two: he may have powers last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age. Micah discovers the joy of flight as an aerialist, courting his trapeze partner, Aenea, and confiding in the mysterious white clown, Drystan. He finally feels free. But the circus has a dark side, and Micah’s past isn’t done with him.

Meanwhile, the strange 'ghost' of a woman with damselfly wings whispers to Micah that only he can help magic return to the realm, and he fears she may be right...Micah has much to learn, and he must do it quickly—before his past and future collide, with catastrophic consequences.

Pantomime is a gorgeous and inventive fantasy with queer elements, inspired by Victorian Scotland. L.R. Lam weaves a coming-of-age tale, stirrings of first love, and prophetic whispers into this unforgettable first installment of the Micah Grey series.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Raised female as Iphiginia Laurus, PoV character Micah is always aware that the life of a privileged debutante is not just uninteresting to contemplate, it's also a violation of the essential self...recreated as Micah, then adds another identity called Gene...that's never going to fit into a world of binaries.

Major spoiler? When the publisher markets these revised and rereleased stories as "the Micah Grey series," I don't think it applies. Intersex people presenting themselves openly are vanishingly rare in both literary and real-life culture. Micah moving from female-presenting to male-presenting might not be ideal, but considering we live in an obsessed-by-binaries culture, it's honest.

Coming to terms with one's essential being's Otherness, coming of age in a world with Procrustean expectations and draconian penalties for failing to meet them, and falling in love while not falling off the highwire, as Micah navigates...enough for ten volumes of story. Author Lam packs a lot into a modest page count.

Revised (I am reliably informed extensively) more than a decade after bowing as an indie-published title, the DAW Books edition was my introduction to the circus world and its denizens. I like stories set in circuses, while disliking circuses themselves. (I will not knowingly go to a place where there are clowns and/or mimes.) The opportunities for honest exploration of self, of identities that make the normies cringe (like I do around clowns/mimes) are perfection for addressing YA audiences who are in their questing and questioning years. In this case, the protagonist knows, has powerful physical evidence for knowing, that the world demands too much when it insists there is no fluidity in our gender presentation. The protagonist falls in love, for the first time, and realizes that's really what matters...connection, caring, the desire to know and be known...all presented as worthy, ordinary quests for one to engage in. All this is set in a fantasy secondary world, one base on Scotland it would seem; one that's got elements of urban fantasy, steampunk-lite, and high fantasy.

Why choose is Author Lam's message as well as praxis. Much is discovered about this world, despite very little being directly said. It becomes a bit troublesome. While Micah's flashbacks to the past as Iphiginia are crystal-clear, with very sharp lines of conflict, the present-day Micah/Gene is not clearly in conflict with the circus's other oddballs and misfits yet lives in fear of being "outed" as intersex to them. Why? Never explained.

A few other things felt odd, like Aenea's oddly-pitched response to Micah's evident falling in love. So the read isn't perfect, but honestly I'm not mad about it. I'm happy to see someone making real and substantive excursions from the tediously heteronormative blob of YA publishing's masses of pages.

A solid four stars for the 2025 revisions!

EXQUISITE THINGS, time-travel immortality and True Love your thing? Here 'tis!

EXQUISITE THINGS
ABDI NAZEMIAN
HarperCollins (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: From Stonewall Award–winning author Abdi Nazemian (Only This Beautiful Moment) comes the epic queer love story of a lifetime. Perfect for fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Shahriar believes he was born in the wrong time. All he’s ever wanted is to love and be loved, but 1895 London doesn’t offer him the freedom to be his true self, and Oscar Wilde’s trial for gross indecency has only reaffirmed that. But one night—and one writer—will grant Shahriar what he’s always wished for: the opportunity to live in a time and place where he can love freely. Rechristened as Shams and then as Bram, he finds what feels like eternal happiness. But can anything truly be eternal?

Oliver doesn’t feel that 1920s Boston gives him a lot of options to be his full self. He knows he could only ever love another boy, but that would break his beloved mother’s heart. Oliver finds freedom and acceptance in the secret queer community at Harvard that his cousin introduces him to. When he meets a mysterious boy with eyes as warm as a flame, his life is irrevocably changed, forever.

Spanning one hundred and thirty years of love and longing, this tale of immortal beloveds searching for their perfect place and time is a vibrant hymn to the beauty of being alive, a celebration of queer love and community, and a reminder that behind every tragic thing that ever existed, there is something exquisite.

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My Review: It's a tale as old as time: boy longs for True Love; the gods hear him, and grant his wish, with the catch that he can't have him; something, no specific Power attached, says "...but you will live to meet him," and Oscar's your uncle you're living out Dorian Gray's life!

Immortality seems a terrible curse to me, when plodding through another Thursday can feel like Hell or at least Purgatory. In this case, at least poor Shahriyar (I went to high school with a queer guy named Shahriyar, wonder whatever became of him?)...going by Shams makes a lot of sense to me with a name like that in Anglophone, Victorian London, better still Bram...gets rewarded by living through very, very interesting times indeed.

The central thesis of the immortality...thing...seemed to me to have a sharp cutting edge in freezing the boys at seventeen. How awful to have adult-strength emotions, unmitigated by adult perspective! The angsty solipsism of eternal youth sounds horrifying to my closer-to-70-than-50 self. We follow them through three timelines in their immortal journey, and spend enough time in each to know they *are* seventeen in them all. It presents the expected problems...remember your dating life at seventeen? *shudder*...but the basic truth of Bram/Shahriyar and Oliver's lives is that they are in love with each other. Men come, men go, but these boys come back into orbit around each other because they're each made the way the other needs a man to be.

It takes forever, it seems, but they own up to their own nonsense and discuss their love of each others' essence, so a lot of the silly acting out does get dealt with. It's thus not purely the angsty nonsense of trying to figure out what works. A lot of time spent doing it, though....

I had procedural questions like I always do in immortality stories...how'd they survive the 1980s with databases and licenses and passports and birth certificates? how'd they get bank accounts? credit cards?...but mostly this book is for the reader to enjoy True Love that withstands the fallibility and failings of human beings. The supporting cast is a hoot and a holler. I think any one of 'em would tentpole a novella at least! Still, my niggles lost a half-star off the read. I wasn't swept up enough not to notice them until I thought about it after the read; these were in-the-moment grumbles.

My reason for dropping the majority of fifth star, though, was the ending...cramming way too much into way too little space made me feel like the author saw someone over my shoulder he'd rather talk to and just dropped me. Either adding 50-60 more pages onto this book or splitting the story and make it two volumes would address that rushed, inelegant ending.

Good fun was had, a very satisfying evening of smiling nodding shouting at the pages...not perfect, but what is?

SHAMPOO UNICORN, nice YA story with a surprisingly successful gimmick

SHAMPOO UNICORN
SAWYER LOVETT
Hyperion (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$18.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Shampoo Unicorn: (noun)
1. A shower hairstyle in which one styles their lathered hair into the fluffiest soapy unicorn horn possible.
2. A podcast by two mysterious hosts exploring rural queer life--the isolation, the microaggressions, the boredom, and occasionally, the sky-shattering joy.

In the small town of Canon, West Virginia, most people care about three things: God, country, and football.

Brian is more into Drag Race, Dolly Parton, and his gig as one of the mystery hosts of his podcast, Shampoo Unicorn.

Greg's life should be perfect as the town's super-masc football star, but his secret is he's just as gay as Brian.

Leslie is a trans girl living in nearby Pennsylvania, searching for reasons to get out of bed every day. Her solace is listening to her favorite podcast. . . .

When a terrible accident occurs, it's Shampoo Unicorn that brings the three teens' lives together. And what begins as a search for answers becomes a story of finding connection.

Sawyer Lovett's powerful and ultimately joyful debut novel is about three teens, one podcast, and carving out a rainbow pocket in an otherwise red state.

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My Review: Mixing three tenses to mark the three major PoVs...well, not likely to thrill me. I've referred to the "Satanic second" and the chest-pokey 'you'" often enough to set up a serious takedown of a story that mixes first, second, and third persons in one narrative.

I didn't hate it.

Wait! Before you call the butterfly-net-bearers, let me explain. First-person Brian is out, gay, and proud...he gets to tell us his story face-on because it will cost him nothing he isn't used to paying in terms of acceptance of himself and by others. Brian is so fully inhabiting his queerness that he podcasts about it.

Like someone who never quite faces you as you talk to them, studly Greg puts distance between his internalized homophobia and his powerful queer desires every way he can. Using the intimate, yet distancing, second person is a very effective way of starting to own his "shadow" side, the part of himself that he knows is there but has no map in his world for bringing forward. He's learning the secret that hiding something is bringing it to the center of your identity but without honesty.

Poor wee Leslie! She's trans in a culture that fears the mere mention of transness. She, quite logically, speaks in the third person of "Leslie" until she can find her way out of a multiply-locked prison of biological maleness. She is protecting Leslie, nurturing her, bringing her up in a sense until she can be in a place that is less risky to life and limb.

So there is a reason for this initially awkward splitting of tenses. It's also the case that I'm very old, and don't need klaxons to figure stuff like this out...the fifteen-year-olds this book is aimed at could use a nudge like this to think more deeply. Interspersed with direct address come transcripts of podcasts Brian does to reach isolated gay people. It makes the story's stakes feel immediate in this highly mediated age we live in.

I found myself enjoying this read more than I'd feared I would after discovering the unorthodox narrative strategy. It is a book I hope reaches, physically reaches to be explicit, its intended audience. In the prevailing climate of rage and hatred being stoked from so many corners, it could prove a lifeline to some badly in need of one.

Please, if your gaydar pings around a young person, please gift that young soul this story as a lifeline.

OCTOBER'S OCEAN, charming romantic YA story with a strong young gay lead

OCTOBER'S OCEAN
DELAINE COPPOCK
Tuxtails Publishing (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$3.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Halloween on Jute Island is like a walking, talking costume parade. That's probably why Seth didn't notice her at first.

The old black dress, wild hair and accent didn't exactly stand out in October. But there is something about Peggy that draws Seth in. He hadn't felt anything but empty since Colin died, but suddenly he feels curious. And who is this new boy in town with ocean eyes that Seth can't look away from?

As the waves of loss threaten to pull Seth under, his love of music and his new friends might just lead him back to shore.

The Summer I Turned Pretty meets Outlander in this beautiful story of teenage love, loss and friendship.

I RECEIVED THIS AS A GIFT. THANK YOU.

My Review: I think older people are either oblivious to, or too uncomfortable to deal with, the gigantic crisis of grief young men are going through. Our in/actions have landed these culturally disadvantaged people in the midst of a life-threatening lacuna in an already thin mental-health safety net for their group. Seth is grieving his lost Colin, and he's male, so doubly not encouraged to discuss this raw, ravaging grief.

I don't think the gay youth suicide epidemic goes unnoticed anymore, but I do think its precursor states like depression and loss go vastly undertreated. If you are, or are aware of, a young person in emotional need, The Trevor Project (link above) is a resource to tap as soon as possible. Doing nothing, not acknowledging the problem or thinking it could just go away, is not a wise choice of coping mechanism. Please reach out, for yourself or to learn more about how you can extend help to your own life's Seth. The rewards are real for those who take action and so are the risks for those who don't.

The story told here is one of gaining perspective and using it to forge a new relationship to life and living with loss. I am a sour old man, well past the perspectiveless, trackless desert that is queer adolescence, so read this story as definite outsider. I was so moved. I was so happy to feel the force of Author Coppock's story. If *I* get it, feel it, am charmed by it, I can see how and understand why a gay young man in a vulnerable state would find it very comforting. We do well to comfort before we make demands of these young men...they get so little of it. The lifelong consequences are more or less invisible, it seems to me at least, and we as adults should make more and better efforts to change this.

Start small. Give this charming story to the queer lad in your orbit.

I learned of this book from its agent/editor, Erik McManus, via his YouTube channel. I'm very glad that I did because I got to enjoy a charming slightly-supernatural romantic story to fill my spooky-season reading card, and found a story that I feel is rooted in an emotional reality underacknowledged in queer culture.

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE, 2013's winner of the Stonewall Book Award for Children’s & YA Literature

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE
BENJAMIN ALIRE SÁENZ
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
$10.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common.

But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A GIFT. THANKS!

My Review: First love, with another boy, when you're fifteen and angsty and from a Mexican-American family.

Wow, that's a lot. Like, a real, real lot.

Which, as adults, we sometimes do not take into account when dealing with teens. The thing we lose sight of most often is that teens have adult-strength emotions triggered by the same things we get triggered by but without our decades of perspective to temper our responses with. Ari's right...his Dad is suffering. His Dad is right...Ari can't understand this suffering. In fact, no one really can. Adults don't think this is as weird and awful as Ari, not yet used to the helplessness of loving others, does. All Ari knows is that his Dad's refusal to talk about his feelings feels like rejection. So Ari clams up...and doesn't see the irony of this. Perspective: missing.

Dante, being brash and bold, just...does stuff. Ari feels envious, astonished, drawn to this bigness and forcefulness. This feels so intoxicating, so overwhelmingly right, that he and Dante meet each other all the time, talk, think, and in that gloriously uniquely young man way, fall in love. They're on different pages here, too, stunningly. Dante doesn't see this love as weird or ugly...it's the 1980s! Stonewall was in the 1960s! Ari thinks it's another way he's weird. He does think Dante's weird, too, and if Dante...big, bright, beautiful Dante with his strong ideas about Chicanismo...is weird, weird must be okay. Somehow that must be true, but how?

Thus is first love born. That was my absolute favorite thing about the story. It wasn't about the zeal of the organs for each other, in Joseph Campbell's memorable and accurate formulation of sexual desire's essence; it was instead about the addictive rush of communion with the Other, the joy of discovering the Other is not only Other but gloriously beautifully Other. These boys discover, slowly and organically, that Love is the best, the only addictive drug that makes things better.

Or it can. And it does in this story. It does this, you should note, S L O W L Y. And Ari, angry teen with a huge rock on top of his mouth, needs help figuring out what it is about Dante that he is, well, Noticing. Here is where I felt the true beauty of the story comes to the fore. It is Ari's parents, these complicatedly wounded souls who are sources of difficulty for him (as all parents must be) who rip off the bandage and show him that he is in love with Dante.

And they do it, in 1980s El Paso, Texas, with kindness and acceptance. This is how we know it's fiction.

Everything about this read was a pleasure to me. It's been over a decade since the story burst on the scene. There are sequels (I haven't read those yet). This story keeps reverberating through our louding voices of hatred. I hope you and I, readers with mileage and perspective unavailable to its target audience, can help that audience find this wonderful story of honest love and acceptance offered and accepted.

IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND, YA rom-com with lovely, sweet boys

IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND
ROBBY WEBER
Inkyard Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$13.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In this hilarious and heartfelt debut novel, an aspiring screenwriter learns sometimes love has its own script.

Harry wants nothing more than to write Hollywood screenplays. He knows the first step toward achieving that goal is winning a screenwriting competition that will seal his admission into the college of his dreams, so he’s determined to spend his summer free of distractions—also known as boys—and finish his script. After last year, Harry is certain love only exists in the movies anyway.

But then the cause of his first heartbreak, Grant, returns with a secret that could change everything—not to mention, there’s a new boy in town, Logan, who is so charming and sweet, he’s making Harry question everything he knows about romance. As he tries to keep his emotions in check and stick to his perfect plan for the future, Harry's about to learn that life doesn't always follow a script.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Debut YA/NA novels don't get much easier to devour than this. The genre tends rowards the the digestible, after all; its intended consumers aren't yet very experienced readers. Nuances? Not many. Lessons? Indeed, by the carload. I suspect that having Harry, our MC, aspire to be a screenwriter evolved out of a need to distance the Lessons from the story...they slid down fairly painlessly.

The Lessons that Robby Weber taught are, thank goodness, very much ones I support and can attest are urgent for young gay guys to learn: Be present; be mindful of others' presence and feelings; be flexible to get ahead of your failures, which are inevitable; embarrassment is not fatal; secrets are only toxic while you keep them. Respecting his audience by making the Lessons part of the stakes of the book was a good idea.

The most deeply affecting parts of the read are, as expected, the moments we're with Harry. The structure of the chapter/script excerpt/chapter again is not greatly to my taste. It works well enough, I just found it less than smooth because it was repeated so often.

That, however, is a rising-seventy-year-old speaking. It will, I expect, feel very different to one decades younger and a trillion trees farther behind in pages consumed. The point of my reading a book like this is, for my own sake, one of celebration. The fact that this queer-boy romantic comedy exists, and came from a major publishing house (albeit from a now-shuttered imprint), and that it's very clearly meant to make a positive self-image impact on its readers, is a joy.

This is what the book-banners and reactionaries can not allow. The way to see yourself in any kind of a future is for that to be available in your cultural orbit. Libraries and bookstores, in that they serve the public, will always have to have battles about books like this one. The idea that someone they dislike is being nurtured and supported for being their honest, authentic self is intolerable to these kinds of hatebags. So, of course, being deeply intolerant of intolerance aimed at people like me, I say: go forth and buy copies of this and similar books to donate to your local library.

And, not coincidentally, support a young gay author as he starts his writing career. Your consumer dollars can never be better spent.

CANTO CONTIGO, music-world YA with trans rep...brush up on your Spanish at the same time

CANTO CONTIGO
JONNY GARZA VILLA
Wednesday Books
$20.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: When a Mariachi star transfers schools, he expects to be handed his new group's lead vocalist spot—what he gets instead is a tenacious current lead with a very familiar, very kissable face.

In a twenty-four-hour span, Rafael Alvarez led North Amistad High School’s Mariachi Alma de la Frontera to their eleventh consecutive first-place win in the Mariachi Extravaganza de Nacional; and met, made out with, and almost hooked up with one of the cutest guys he’s ever met.

Now eight months later, Rafie’s ready for one final win. What he didn’t plan for is his family moving to San Antonio before his senior year, forcing him to leave behind his group while dealing with the loss of the most important person in his life—his beloved abuelo. Another hitch in his plan: The Selena Quintanilla-Perez Academy’s Mariachi Todos Colores already has a lead vocalist, Rey Chavez—the boy Rafie made out with—who now stands between him winning and being the great Mariachi Rafie's abuelo always believed him to be. Despite their newfound rivalry for center stage, Rafie can’t squash his feelings for Rey. Now he must decide between the people he’s known his entire life or the one just starting to get to know the real him.

Canto Contigo is a love letter to Mexican culture, family and legacy, the people who shape us, and allowing ourselves to forge our own path. At its heart, this is one of the most glorious rivals-to-lovers romance about finding the one who challenges you in the most extraordinary ways.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: People are complicated, messy creatures, amalgamated from every speck of the spectrum of existence. No one who thinks babyqueers, that is your adolescent persons of all genders and preferences, should be kept in the dark about this, has any moral authority. They're arguing for repressions that they screech loudly about perceiving against them, but it being okay to do to others because they're Other.

The centrality of "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is obviously lost on these idiots.

Now that's out of the way, Canto Contigo (that title rips my sentimental heart out) is the 180° opposite of the book-banner/oppressor mentality's comfort zone. There's an out trans person in a gay relationship! That ought to send some fur flying among the deeply homophobic Latine folks, the religious nuts, and the fascist identity police. Good job, Author Garza Villa. Keep swingin' for their kneecaps. That goes also for Rafie's overweening Man-itude. The sheer arrogance of all adolescents I have ever met too often gets left out of the mirror of YA fiction. There is not a male person alive in the world today who could not benefit from seeing how his Man-itude looks from the outside. Start early instilling awareness and perspective in your boys, gay or otherwise. It will help him, and all who love him, in the long run.

The grieving that Rafie does for his Abuelo is very well-handled, and makes Rafie's dickheadedness a lot more forgiveable. It's a big refreshing change to see boys being credited with the ability to process deep emotions, albeit not smoothly. Too often the resolution of the grieving is both too smooth and too fast. Rafie's grieving isn't complete by the end of the story but it's underway...much more honest, IMO. I'll alsi let Anglophone readers know that there's a goodly amount of Spanish used in the dialogue. As that's normal for Mexican-American boys, I didn't actually notice it much until I was asked to translate something. So, be aware if speaking Spanish is not on your list of accomplishments.

The vibrancy of these boys rushing into their lives, hurtling past the idiocy of phobes and their control fetishes, their smallness of spirit, and the rules they insist must be obeyed, was delightful. The music lessons are fascinating. The fact that the boys are rivals for a very important and prestigious position in their school's mariachi contest is a great way to keep the emotional loud pedal down without it feeling as though the author's manufacturing crises. It's baked in when the situation is set up this way. Going for the same role in a public-facing event is going to make competitors out of any two boys, then add to the mix that Rey's got the added pressure of representing for all of transmasc-dom.... They're believably entwined, they're completely besotted, and they each want to win.

Great way to tell a story. It's told well. I'm glad I got to know the entire bunch. Yes, even the jerks...need jerks to make a love story about us-v-them really work. This one's got that covered. I might think twice about handing the book to anyone fourteen or under without really carefully considering where that kid's social development was. Fifteen on up I'd be completely comfortable handing it over.

Get one for yourself, too, grandparent, and have a book club.

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL, atmospheric horror-adjacent QUILTBAG fiction aimed at older teens

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL
ADEN POLYDOROS
Inkyard Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$9.99 ebook editions, available now

FINALIST FOR THE 34th Lambda Literary Award—BEST LGBTQ YA FICTION! Winners announced 11 June 2022.

A BEST BOOKS OF 2021 – YOUNG ADULT SELECTION FROM BOOKPAGE!

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania.

But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than anyone knows.

Now, with only days to spare until the dybbuk takes over Alter’s body completely, the two boys must race to track down the killer—before the killer claims them next.

Death lurks around every corner in this unforgettable Jewish historical fantasy about a city, a boy, and the shadows of the past that bind them both together.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I think there's nothing more delightful to me than queer representation in historical fiction. We were there, too, and deserve to be written into the zeitgeist.

This is Young Adult queer representation in the 19th century, and in my ongoing quest not to die above the neck before I do below it, I got the DRC. I'm really very glad that I did...this read was a great pleasure to me. The use of Jewish folk cultural touchstones...matchmakers, dybbuks being the most horrifying...the sprinkings of Yiddish, the focus...fierce focus...on family and loyalty, were all tastes of delight for this reader. The author doesn't spend inordinate time explaining things but he does provide context and some factual stuff for the more, um, ethnocentric stuff.

It is a sheer joy to see the story being set away from a) World War II, b) New York's Lower East Side, or c) the shtetl somewhere in Eastern Europe. The Jewish population of Chicago has never been teensy...the Great Lakes ports were as much a destination as New York, but they get less play. I'm also, since I read The Devil in the White City and read The Man Who Made Parks: The Story of Parkbuilder Frederick Law Olmsted by Frieda Wishinsky to my oldest grandson, a big aficionado of the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition (aka "the White City") in Chicago. That venue plays quite a role in this murder mystery, though exactly how and why shall remain a secret lest I be set upon by spoilerphobes next time I go grocery shopping.

What I will say is that the squeamish should not pick the book up. There are graphic moments of bloodyness, there are awful physical violences, and of course the element of supernatural possession can't be left out. There are more 21st-century concerns like homophobia and anti-semitism (this last pervades the end of the book to a sometimes uncomfortable degree), but this is Spooktober! A few scares, some terrible spooky goins-on, that is what this month is for! Be prepared, also, for the politics of the book. It's solidly anti-capitalist, despite MC Alter's determination to earn earn earn so he can bring his mother and sisters to the Promised Land...Chicago! imagine...because that's really situational not aspirational capitalism. And Alter's failed match-cum-bestie, young Raizel from downstairs in his apartment building, is there to keep him from falling *too* deep into capitalism's cess pit. (She is, in fact, one of the book's most delightful characters, propensity to splash tea onto laps notwithstanding.)

Putting on my YA-unlover's hat, the usual prolixity...why say in ten words what can make an entire chapter?...is fully present, the stakes are APOCALYPTIC ZOMG THE UNIVERSE WILL END!! and that gets really tiring to an old fart like me who knows that, after I and you and the author are all dead the planet will keep spinning on. Probably all the better for our absence.

But that is an elderly person speaking, the audience that's here for YA is going to *eat*this*up* because every one of the elements are handled with aplomb and without the edge of tweeness I've reacted to in other YA books like they're coated in cat dander. I don't at all recommend giving this to a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old. The realities of sexual abuse aren't in any way soft-pedaled. The realities of sexual desire, that it doesn't obey rules or orders, are best left to the older end of the YA spectrum, which I think of as sixteen and up. I know y'all know y'all's kids better than I do, so understand I'm speaking in generalities and not prescribing anything.

The mystery aspect of the story, the resolution to the murders and disappearances of Jewish boys, is very well-handled and was solidly made in serious mystery form. If you're up for it, match wits with the author; if you're not, read the spooky book or the coming-out (sort of!) book or the immigrant-makes-it book. They're all here.

I think my point should be clear: Read The City Beautiful. It will please at least 80% of the folks who read my reviews.