Feb 2014 Book of the Month - Winner is "Just Between Us"

[Kaje]

This thread is for nominations for the YA LGBT book that you would like to see the group read in February 2014.

Anything we haven't already read is welcome - it need not be a new release. Check our book-of-the-month bookshelf if you are wondering whether a book has already been read by the group.

Please post a link to the book, copy the blurb, and give us a few words about why you think this would be a good choice. If it has edgy or potentially 16+ content please also note that - we'd be happy to have it on the list, but want members to be aware.

Books that lost a previous vote can to be nominated again, (and authors are allowed to nominate their own books if they feel moved to do so.)

Nominations will close after a maximum of 12 books are listed, or MIDNIGHT FRI 31st, before the newsletter goes out, so the poll can be posted. Nominations are NOW CLOSED.

The poll can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/9... Voting will end midnight Feb 4th.

[Rainbowheart]

I'd like to nominate The Shell House by Linda Newbery.



About the book....

"Greg’s casual interest in the history of a ruined mansion becomes more personal as he slowly discovers the tragic events that overwhelmed its last inhabitants. Set against a background of the modern day and the First World War, Greg’s contemporary beliefs become intertwined with those of Edmund, a foot soldier whose confusion about his sexuality and identity mirrors Greg’s own feelings of insecurity."

The reason I think it would be a good choice is because I know a lot of people here prefer m/m, and this is a story about two young gay men, one in the present and one in the past. The first one is a modern day teenage boy in England. And the second one is a young soldier during the first world war. It's kind of historical romance / coming of age genre.

[C.]

Freeing Stella by Zoe Lynne

About the book:

Stella Marshall feels invisible to everyone but her sister Jessica and best friend Jenna. Thanks to their Friday night LGBTQ youth group meetings, she can be true to herself and cast aside the boy she was born as, Steven. The rest of the time, she locks herself away, because if her super conservative, Christian parents ever found out….

When her little sister admits to liking a girl as more than a friend, it becomes ten times harder for Stella to keep up the charade. She wants to stand by Jess and take some of the heat away, and that means coming out of the closet—even if it costs Stella her family and the girl of her dreams, Lillian Nelson. Unfortunately, it’s too frightening to give up the security of hiding behind Steven. But Stella knows she has to be brave, for herself and her sister.

[Wren]

In the wake of her father's death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted.

The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King's Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash's capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love.

Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.

i think we should read this because there aren't very many fantasy/paranormal LGBT YA, so this would be cool to read

[Wren]

Seventeen-year-old Alyssa thought she knew who she was. She had her family and her best friends and, most important, she had Sarah. Sarah, her girlfriend, with whom she dreamed with about the day they could move far away and live out and proud and accepted for themselves, instead of having to hide their relationship.

Alyssa never thought she would have to make that move by herself, but disowned by her father and cut off from everyone she loves, she is forced to move hundreds of miles away to live with Carly, the biological mother she barely knows, in a town where everyone immediately dismisses her as "Carly's girl." As Alyssa struggles to forget her past and come to terms with her future, will she be able to build a new life for herself and believe in love again? Or will she be forced to relive the mistakes that have cost her everything and everyone she cared about?

National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters has written a compelling novel about coming out, finding love, and discovering your place in the world. Alyssa's story will speak to anyone who has known the joy and pain of first love and the struggle to start over again
i think we should read this because it only has a few hundred ratings....so it would be nice to get it some more reads

[Gabby]

The Straight Road to Kylie

Life is fabulous for Jonathan Parish.
He's seventeen, out and proud, and ready to party through senior year with his posse of best girlfriends. But the year starts off with the wrong kind of bang when Jonathan -- in an inebriated lapse of judgment -- sleeps with a friend of his... A girlfriend!
When word gets around that hot-but-previously-unavailable Jonathan might be on the market, the school's 'it' girl approaches him with a proposal: pretend to be her boyfriend, and achieve popularity like he's never known. But popularity isn't what Jonathan wants. And suddenly, going back into the closet becomes Jonathan's only way to get what he's after -- a trip to see Kylie Minogue.

[Ellen]

I'd like to nominate this coming of age coming out tale:



Matt West is about to start the summer break before his senior year. While his best friends are having girl troubles, he's wondering how to tell them he's crushing on the star of the boy's basketball team.

"Birds on a Wire" is about love, friendship, and what it means to be a man.

[Kaje]

I just read Just Between Us by J.H. Trumble and I'm going to throw it into the list.

"Seventeen-year-old Luke Chesser is trying to forget his spectacular failure of a love life. He practices marching band moves for hours in the hot Texas sun, deals with his disapproving father, and slyly checks out the new band field tech, Curtis Cameron. Before long, Luke is falling harder than he knew he could. And this time, he intends to play it right.

Since testing positive for HIV, Curtis has careened between numbness and fear. Too ashamed to tell anyone, Curtis can't possibly act on his feelings. And Luke--impulsive, funny, and more tempting than he realizes--won't take a hint. Even when Curtis distances himself it backfires, leaving him with no idea how to protect Luke from the truth.

Confronting a sensitive topic with candor and aplomb, acclaimed author J. H. Trumble renders a modern love story as sweet, sharp, and messy as the real thing, where easy answers are elusive, and sometimes the only impossible thing is to walk away."


-A realistic and not too angsty take on the difficult subject of HIV and young sexually active people.

[Kaje]

Nominations closed.

The poll can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/9... Voting will end midnight Feb 4th.