#queer ya
y’all i just finished i kissed shara wheeler and ya girl is drowning in the conservative-religious-southern-small-town-closeted-queer nostalgia right now oh my god
Hi! Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If this is your first time seeing a post from us, here’s a little bit about us: YAPride.org is a website dedicated to supporting LGBTQIAP+ YA literature. We were started in 2011 by two teenagers who were passionate about representation. We are now run primarily by a team of college students and young adults!
We have always believed that books can touch readers and change lives, often in unseen ways. For this Pride month, we want to make those experiences seen. We want to hear from teens like you about the LGBTQIAP+ YA books and authors that have touched your life. Our hope is to round-up some of these stories and feature them on our site during our month-long blogathon!
Interested in participating? Here’s some more information!
You can submit your story via this Google Form. We’ll ask you for an email as a way we can reach out to you if your story is selected! We’ll also ask you for “personal information,” which you can include as much or as little of as you would like. Some things you may choose to include are: first name (or whatever you would like to be called/identified by), last initial, age, State/Province/etc where you live. If you’d prefer to have your entry be completely anonymous, you can simply put N/A into the form. If you or a parent/guardian have further questions, feel free to email us at [email protected].
If you’re stuck on something to write about, here are some potential topics/questions to think about!
- A book that changed your life– How did it help you see the world in a new way? What possibilities did it open up for you that had not been opened before? What would you tell the author if you could?
- Seeing yourself on the page for the first time– What book was it? What was the experience of reading it like?
How has the experience stuck with you since finishing it? - The first time you read a LGBTQIAP+ YA book– What book was it? What was the experience of reading it like?
Where did you find it/get it from? Did someone recommend it to you? - Having a librarian or teacher who helps you find LGBTQIAP+ YA
- Seeing LGBTQIAP+ YA in bookstores, libraries, and classrooms
- A book you would recommend to other teens
- Meeting your favorite author
Submit your story here or email it to [email protected]. You can also send any questions you have to that email, or tweet us at @YA_Pride.
Happy book birthday to three EXCELLENT Queer YA novels!
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
From Stonewall and Lambda Award-winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.
Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.
When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle….
But as he navigates his complicated feelings, Felix begins a journey of questioning and self-discovery that helps redefine his most important relationship: how he feels about himself.
Felix Ever After is an honest and layered story about identity, falling in love, and recognizing the love you deserve
The Mermaid, The Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
A desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial daughter find a connection on the high seas in a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic.
Aboard the pirate ship Dove, Flora the girl takes on the identity of Florian the man to earn the respect and protection of the crew. For Flora, former starving urchin, the brutal life of a pirate is about survival: don’t trust, don’t stick out, and don’t feel. But on this voyage, as the pirates prepare to sell their unsuspecting passengers into slavery, Flora is drawn to the Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, who is en route to a dreaded arranged marriage with her own casket in tow. Flora doesn’t expect to be taken under Evelyn’s wing, and Evelyn doesn’t expect to find such a deep bond with the pirate Florian.
Soon the unlikely pair set in motion a wild escape that will free a captured mermaid (coveted for her blood, which causes men to have visions and lose memories) and involve the mysterious Pirate Supreme, an opportunistic witch, and the all-encompassing Sea itself.
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…
In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.
Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.
And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.
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Don’t miss this excellent LGBTQIAP+ YA giveaway happening on Instagram! Head on over here to find out how to enter!
Photo Description: Instagram post that says “Summer Pride Giveaway” at the top and features the covers of ten LGBTQIAP+ YA books. The titles are The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper, We Unleash the Merciless Storm by Tehlor Kay Mejia, Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian, We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia, Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram, Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender, The Dangerous Art of Blending In by Angelo Surmelis, Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass, The Summer of Everything by Julian Winters, and Reverie by Ryan La Sala.
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“While I’m gone,“ Gansey said, pausing, "dream me the world. Something new for every night.”
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