stefan mesch

schwule, lesbische und trans-Jugendbücher: Empfehlungen

stefanmesch

Top 10:

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this blog post is bilingual (German notes in orange)

ich poste auf Deutsch UND Englisch, dieses Mal

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since 2010, I sampled nearly 200 LGBTQQIA Young Adult novels. Here are my favorites: books that I have not read yet, but that pulled me in quickly, made it to my to-read-list and will be read soon. let me know what you think about the titles and put your own suggestions (or warnings!) in the comments. [the summaries that I quote for each book have been shortened and edited.]

seit 2010 suche ich Bücher mit schwulen, lesbischen, bi-, trans-, inter-, asexuellen, queeren Figuren. hier sind die Jugendbücher, deren Leseproben mich überzeugt haben und die ich mir vorgemerkt habe: ich freue mich über Ergänzungen und Kommentare! [die zitierten englischen Klappentexte sind gekürzt.] 

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01) NANCY GARDEN: Annie on my Mind

„Two teenage girls whose friendship blossoms into love and who, despite pressures from family and school, promise to be true to each other and their feelings. This groundbreaking book has been banned from many school libraries and even publicly burned in Kansas City.“

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02) JULIE MAYHEW: The Big Lie

„Contemporary Nazi England: Jessika Keller obeys her father and does her best to impress Herr Fisher at the Bund Deutscher Mädel meetings. Her neighbour Clementine is outspoken and radical. And the regime has noticed. Jess cannot keep both her perfect life and her dearest friend. But which can she live without?“


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03) AMI POLONSKY: Gracefully Grayson

„Alone at home, twelve-year-old Grayson glows; but at school, he’s determined to fly under the radar. He has been holding onto a secret: “he” is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender’s body. Strengthened by an unexpected friendship and a caring teacher who gives her a chance to step into the spotlight, Grayson might finally have the tools to let her inner light shine.“

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04) LISA WILLIAMSON: „The Art of being normal“

„David Piper has always been an outsider. His parents think he’s gay. The school bully thinks he’s a freak. Only his two best friends know the real truth – David wants to be a girl. On the first day at his new school Leo Denton has one goal – to be invisible. Attracting the attention of the most beautiful girl in year eleven is definitely not part of that plan. When Leo stands up for David in a fight, an unlikely friendship forms.“

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05) KIEF HILLSBERY: War Boy

„Fleeing an abusive father, fourteen-year-old Radboy takes to the road with Jonnyboy, an older friend and mentor. On the bus, they hook up with Finn and Critter, a couple of speed-freak boyfriends. Later, Radboy stays behind in San Francisco, where the underground world inspires his own burgeoning sexual and emotional desires.“

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06) BILL KONIGSBERG: Openly Straight

„Rafe is a normal teenager from Boulder, Colorado. He’s been out since 8th grade, and he isn’t teased, and he goes to other high schools and talks about tolerance and stuff. When he transfers to an all-boys‘ boarding school in New England, he decides to keep his sexuality a secret — not so much going back in the closet as starting over with a clean slate. But then he sees a classmate break down. He meets a teacher who challenges him to write his story. And most of all, he falls in love with Ben . . . who doesn’t even know that love is possible.“

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07) BILL KONIGSBERG: The Porcupine of Truth

„An epic road trip involving family history and gay history: Carson Smith is resigned to spending his summer in Billings, Montana, helping his mom take care of his father, a dying alcoholic he doesn’t really know. Then he meets Aisha Stinson, a [gay] beautiful girl who has run away from her difficult family, and Pastor John Logan, who’s long held a secret regarding Carson’s grandfather, who disappeared without warning or explanation thirty years before.“

 …and: 

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08) ANN BAUSUM: Stonewall. Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights

„In 1969 being gay in the United States was a criminal offense. People went to jail, lost jobs, and were disowned by their families for being gay. There were few safe havens. The Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-run, filthy, overpriced bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was one of them. One hot June night, when cops pounded on the door of the Stonewall, almost nothing went as planned. Tensions were high. The crowd refused to go away. The raid became a riot. The riot became a catalyst and triggered an explosive demand for gay rights.“

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09) KEN SETTERINGTON: Branded by the Pink Triangle

„Germany, especially Berlin, was one of the most tolerant places for homosexuals in the world. When the Nazis came to power, raids, arrests, prison sentences and expulsions became the daily reality. When the concentration camps were built, homosexuals were imprisoned along with Jews and any other groups the Nazis wanted to suppress. The pink triangle, sewn onto prison uniforms, became the symbol of the persecution of homosexuals, a persecution that would continue for many years after the war. A mix of historical research, first person accounts.“

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10) APRIL SINCLAIR: „Coffee will make you black“

„Set on Chicago’s Southside in the mid-to-late 60s, April Sinclair writes frankly about a young black woman’s sexuality, and about the confusion Stevie faces when she realizes she’s more attracted to the school nurse — who is white — than her teenage boyfriend. Stevie is a bookworm, yet she longs to fit in with the cool crowd. Fighting her mother every step of the way, she begins to experiment with talkin‘ trash and „kicking butt“. With the assassination of Dr. King she gains a new political awareness.“

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11) BENJAMIN ALIRE SÁENZ: „Aristotle and Dante discover the Secrets of the Universe“

„Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all. As the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives.“

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12) ALEXANDER CHEE: Edinburgh

„Twelve-year-old Fee is a gifted Korean-American soprano in a boys‘ choir in Maine whose choir director reveals himself to be a serial pedophile. Fee and his friends are forced to bear grief, shame, and pain that endure long after the director is imprisoned. Fee survives even as his friends do not, but a deep-seated horror and dread accompany him through his self-destructive college days and after, until he meets a beautiful young student named Warden and is forced to confront the demons of his brutal past.“

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13) ADAM SILVERA: More happy than not

„In the months after his father’s suicide, it’s been tough for 16-year-old Aaron Soto. When his girlfriend Genevieve leaves for a couple of weeks, Aaron spends all his time hanging out with this new guy, Thomas. Aaron’s crew notices, and they’re not exactly thrilled. But Aaron can’t deny the happiness Thomas brings. Aaron considers turning to the Leteo Institute’s revolutionary memory-alteration procedure to straighten himself out.“

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14) MICHELLE TEA: The passionate Mistakes and intricate Corruption of one Girl in America

„The turbulent adventures of one girl in America as she moves from Boston’s teenage goth world to whoring in New Age Tucson before finally arriving in San Francisco’s dyke underground. Honest, sarcastic, lyrical and direct, Tea’s writing is possibly the most literate and sophisticated treatment of underground dyke culture ever written.“

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15) L.P. HARTLEY: The Go-Between

„Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend’s beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years.“

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16) PAUL RUSSELL: Sea of Tranquility

„An extreordinary novel that traces a disintegrating nuclear family across two tumultuous decades of American life – from the early ’60s to the ’80s – and is told in a quartet of voices: astronaut Allen Cloud, his wife, their gay son, Jonathan, and his friend/lover, ranging in time and emotion from the optimism of the first moon shot to the dark landscape of the age of AIDS.“

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17) ZOE WHITTALL: Bottle Rocket Hearts

„Montreal: Revolution seems possible when you’re 18, like Eve. She is pining to get out of her parents‘ house and find a girl who wants to kiss her back. She meets Della: mysterious, defiantly non-monogamous, an avid separatist, and ten years older. On the night of the 1995 referendum, politics and romance come to a head and Eve’s naiveté begins to fade.“

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18) ROBIN TALLEY: Lies we tell ourselves

„In 1959 Virginia, Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town’s most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal. Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another.“

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19) ANDREW SMITH: Stick

„Fourteen-year-old Stark McClellan (nicknamed Stick because he’s tall and thin) is bullied for being “deformed” – he was born with only one ear. His older brother Bosten is always there to defend Stick. But the boys can’t defend one another from their abusive parents. When Stick realizes Bosten is gay, he knows that to survive his father’s anger, Bosten must leave home. Stick has to find his brother, or he will never feel whole again.“

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20) SCOTT HEIM: Mysterious Skin

„At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot remember an entire five–hour period of time. He begins to believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick is a teenage hustler and a terrorist of sorts.“

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21) KIM FIELDING: Motel. Pool.

„In the mid-1950s, Jack Dayton flees his working-class prospects in Omaha and heads to Hollywood, convinced he’ll be the next James Dean. But poor decisions ultimately find him at a cheap motel off Route 66, lifeless at the bottom of the pool. Sixty years later, Tag Manning, feeling hopeless and empty, flees his most recent relationship mistake and finds he’s transporting a hitchhiking ghost. Jack and Tag come to find much-needed friends in each other.“

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22) JOSEPH OLSHAN: Nightswimmer

„Ten years ago, Will Kaplan and his lover went for a night swim in the Pacific Ocean—but only Will emerged. In the decade that followed, Will relocated to the other end of the continent, filling his days with shallow and pointless affairs, unable to come to terms with the bizarre disappearance that could have been a tragic drowning, a well-planned abandonment, or both. Immersing himself in New York’s gay bar and disco scene, and a hedonistic Fire Island culture darkened by the grim specter of AIDS, Will meets Sean Paris, a young man as tortured and damaged by the past as Will himself.“

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23) MADELYN ARNOLD: Bird-Eyes

„In 1963, being different can be illegal-as sixteen-year-old Latisha, a lesbian runaway, discovers when she is sentenced to treatment in the locked ward of a mental hospital for being „incorrigible“ and a threat to society. Her best friend in the ward is Anna, an older deaf woman committed for depression. Although she’s forbidden to communicate in sign language, Anna teaches Latisha and gives her a name: „Bird-Eyes.“A brilliant novel of friendship and defiance, of passion and resistance.“

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24) JO KNOWLES: See you at Harry’s

„Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. Mom helps Dad run the family restaurant; Sarah is taking a gap year after high school; and Holden pretends that Mom and Dad and everyone else doesn’t know he’s gay, even as he fends off bullies at school. Then there’s Charlie: three years old, a „surprise“ baby, the center of everyone’s world. If it wasn’t for Ran, Fern’s calm and positive best friend, there’d be nowhere to turn. But then tragedy strikes- and Fern feels not only more alone than ever, but also responsible for the accident that has wrenched her family apart.“

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25) MARY RENAULT: The Charioteer

„World War II: Laurie Odell is sent to a rural veterans’ hospital in England to convalesce. There he befriends the young, bright Andrew, a conscientious objector serving as an orderly. As they find solace and companionship together in the idyllic surroundings of the hospital, their friendship blooms into a discreet, chaste romance. Then one day, Ralph Lanyon, a mentor from Laurie’s schoolboy days, suddenly reappears in Laurie’s life, and draws him into a tight-knit social circle of world-weary gay men. Laurie is forced to choose between the sweet ideals of innocence and the distinct pleasures of experience.“

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26) LARRY DUPLECHAN: Blackbird

„A funny, moving, gay coming-of-age novel about growing up black and gay in Southern California. The lead character, Johnnie Ray Rousseau, is a high school student upset at losing the lead role in the school staging of Romeo and Juliet; his best friend has been beaten badly by his father, and his girlfriend is pressuring him to have sex for the first time. All the while, he’s intrigued by Marshall MacNeill, a fellow drama class member.“

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27) TOM SPANBAUER: Now is the Hour

„The year is 1967, and Rigby John Klusener, seventeen years old and finally leaving Pocatello, Idaho, is on the highway with his thumb out and a flower behind his ear, headed for San Francisco. Now Is the Hour traces his gradual emancipation from his strictly religious farming family and the small-minded, bigoted community.“

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28) MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: A Home at the End of the World

„Two boyhood friends: Jonathan, lonely, introspective, and unsure of himself; and Bobby, hip, dark, and inarticulate. In New York after college, Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his roommate, Clare. Bobby and Clare fall in love, scuttling the plans of Jonathan, who is gay, to father Clare’s child. Then, when Clare and Bobby have a baby, the three move to a small house upstate to raise „their“ child together and, with an odd friend, Alice, create a new kind of family.“

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29) CHRISTOPHER BRAM: „Surprising myself“

„A brilliant debut novel about the relationship between a boy and his homosexual friend. After four years of living with relatives in Switzerland, seventeen-year-old Joel Scherzenlieb finds himself in the United States for the summer, working at a Boy Scout camp. There, he meets nineteen-year-old Corey Cobbett, a fellow counselor. Soon, Joel’s sarcastic, distant CIA father shows up and whisks him away to live with his mother, grandmother, and older sister on a farm in Virginia. As his dreams of going to college vanish, Joel faces his longest year yet. But everything changes when Corey returns to his life.“

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30) JAMES DAWSON: All of the Above

„Sixteen-year-old Toria Bland arrives at her new school and meets the funny and foul-mouthed Polly, who’s the coolest girl that Toria has ever seen. Polly and the rest of the ‚alternative‘ kids take Toria under their wing. That’s when she meets the irresistible Nico Mancini, lead singer of a local band. Toria likes Nico, Nico likes Toria, but then there’s Polly…love and friendship have a funny way of going round in circles.“

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31) EILEEN MYLES: Cool for you

„Grainy and stripped, this gritty novel traces the downbeat progress of a Catholic, working-class lesbian coming of age in Boston.“

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32) MICHAEL THOMAS FORD: Suicide Notes

„Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year’s Day to find himself in the hospital. Make that the psychiatric ward. With the nutjobs. Clearly, this is all a huge mistake. Forget about the bandages on his wrists. Forget about his problems with his best friend, Allie, and her boyfriend, Burke. Jeff’s perfectly fine, perfectly normal, not like the other kids in the hospital with him. But a funny thing happens as his forty-five-day sentence drags on: the crazies start to seem less crazy. Suicide Notes is a darkly humorous novel that examines that fuzzy line between „normal“ and the rest of us.“

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33) NON PRATT: Trouble

„When the entire high school finds out that Hannah Shepard is pregnant via her ex-best friend, she has a full-on meltdown in her backyard. The one witness: Aaron Tyler, a transfer student and the only boy who doesn’t seem to want to get into Hannah’s pants. Confused and scared, Hannah needs someone to be on her side. Wishing to make up for his own past mistakes, Aaron does the unthinkable and offers to pretend to be the father of Hannah’s unborn baby. Even more unbelievable, Hannah hears herself saying “yes.” Told in alternating perspectives between Hannah and Aaron, Trouble is the story of two teenagers helping each other to move forward in the wake of tragedy and devastating choices.“

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34) K.M. SOEHNLEIN: The World of normal Boys

„It is the late 1970s in suburban New Jersey, and while „normal boys“ are into cars, sports, and bullying their classmates, Robin Mackenzie enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother. He dutifully plays the role of the good son for his meat-and-potatoes father, but everything changes in one, horrifying instant when a tragic accident wakes his family from their middle-American dream and plunges them into a spiral of slow destruction. As the MacKenzie family falls apart, Robin embarks on an explosive odyssey of sexual self-discovery that will take him into a complex future, beyond the world of normal boys.“

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35) ARIN ANDREWS: Some Assembly Required: The not-so-secret Life of a transgender Teen

„Seventeen-year-old Arin Andrews shares all the hilarious, painful, and poignant details of undergoing gender reassignment as a high school student in this winning memoir. He had been born in the body of a girl and there seemed to be no relief in sight. Arin reveals the challenges he faced as a girl, the humiliation and anger he felt after getting kicked out of his private school, and all the changes, both mental and physical, he experienced once his transition began. Arin also writes about the thrill of meeting and dating a young transgender woman named Katie Hill and the heartache that followed after they broke up.“

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36) EDWARD VAN DE VENDEL: Die Tage der Bluegrass-Liebe

„Ein Feriencamp in den USA. Tycho und Oliver, die dort in ihren Sommerferien arbeiten, verstehen sich von Anfang an besonders gut. Sie können wunderbar miteinander reden und lachen. Doch dann merkt Tycho, dass er mehr für Oliver empfindet als bloße Freundschaft. Nach der ersten Unsicherheit fühlt er sich zusammen mit Oliver stark, fast unbesiegbar. Daran kann auch der Rauswurf aus dem Camp nichts ändern.“

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37) FLOORTJE ZWIGTMANN: Ich, Adrian Mayfield

„London 1884. Adrian Mayfield ist keine 17 und Lehrjunge bei einem Maßschneider in Soho. Als er eines Tages seine Anstellung verliert, findet er Unterschlupf bei einem Kunstmaler namens Augustus Trops und beginnt, Modell zu sitzen. Beim Modellsitzen bleibt es nicht, zu Adrians allergrößtem Erstaunen: Ja, er liebt Männer! Im London dieser Zeit ein Verbrechen. Durch Trops erhält Adrian Zugang zu den erlesensten Künstlerkreisen Londons, an deren Spitze Oscar Wilde im Café Royal thront. Adrian beginnt Gefallen zu finden an dieser dekadenten Gesellschaft.“

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38) JULIE ANNE PETERS: Keeping you a Secret

„Being gay doesn’t have to be a secret anymore. With a steady boyfriend, the position of Student Council President, and a chance to go to an Ivy League college, high school life is just fine for Holland Jaeger. But when Cece Goddard comes to school, everything changes. They have undeniable feelings for each other. But how will others react to their developing relationship?“

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39) JULIA WATTS: Finding H.F.

„Sixteen-year-old Heavenly Faith (H.F.) discovers she has a crush on a local college professor’s daughter, and embarks on a search for her missing mother.“

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40) EMILY M. DANFORTH: The Miseducation of Cameron Post

„When Cameron Post’s parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they’ll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl. Cam is soon forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in. Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful, pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. She and Cam forge an unexpected and intense friendship — one that seems to leave room for something more to emerge. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to ‘fix’ her niece.“

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15 books that I did not enjoy and won’t recommend / gelesen und nicht gemocht:

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people love Andreas Steinhöfel’s kitschy, overwrought and emotionally fake „Die Mitte der Welt“/“The Center of the World“ (Germany, 1998). I can’t recommend it at all / keine Empfehlung:

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…and Hubert Fichte is one of my favorite authors – there has not been a book of his that I didn’t like, so far – but I would not classify him as „YA literature“: very, very literary and demanding coming-of-age novels / sperrige, tolle deutsche Klassiker über Identität und Coming-of-Age… aber keine „Young Adult“-Bücher: Hubert Fichte, einer meiner Lieblingsautoren:

gute Goodreads-Liste mit weiteren deutschen oder ins Deutsche übersetzten Titeln, zum mit-Voten: Link