A broken-hearted and enraged Kelly decides to pose as a recruit at Lion’s Mouth Christian Ranch to discover why his beloved William committed suicide after experiencing religious conversion. In the isolated high mountains of the desert, where there is no way out, Kelly soon discovers the awful truth.
In contemporary San Francisco, an extended family is transformed by the emerging breakdown of a troubled adolescent boy. The lives of Christopher's mother, Nan; her lover, Marina; his gay father, Hal; and Hal's new love interest are pushed to the edge by Christopher's strange behavior, by something new in him that mystifies them all.
Meena was babysitting Trace Clayton, the son of her parents' best friends, when a fire broke out in the living room. Meena was able to save Trace, but nothing more. No one really knows how it happened. Except Meena.
Jeremy's life was perfect. He was the running back of the football team. He had been dating Tara, the most beautiful girl in school, for two years. Then he met Josh.
Danny doesn't understand why he needs to be on medication. The drugs make his mind fuzzy. They dull his creativity. So Danny stops taking his meds. And he starts to feel like his old self. Then Danny's history teacher pushes him a little too far.
Jane's lying on her bed. It's covered in a sheet of books and papers and notebooks and pens. Magna Carta, carbolic acid, carte blanche . . . She pulls the unopened SAT envelope from the pocket of her dirty jeans. Jane knows the score. She barely got the 200 for signing her name.
Karyn's mom moves from man to man in an attempt to feel wanted, loved. But Karyn doesn't have to try. Her boyfriend, T. J., worships the ground she walks on. Too bad his brother Reed is the one she really loves.
Reed has promised himself that he will always look out for his brother T. J. After all, he owes T. J. But last week, T.J.'s coach at Boston College called and offered Reed the starting quarterback spot for the fall-the position T. J. thinks will be his.
Peter has always felt as though his accident was punishment for what happened seven years ago. Recently, all of his old friends have come back into his life, and things are looking up. But when the group is reunited and they finally face the details of that tragic day, he has to wonder if he's been forgiven.
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.
Sydney Skate has dubbed himself "Shockproof": He decoded his mother's gossip with her glamorous lesbian girlfriends at age eight (but has never let on to her that he knows she's gay). He easily shrugs off his father's demands to skip college and join him in the exciting world of swimming pool sales for suburbanites.
Charles Weston won't play games. Even as a child he refused to play the schoolroom game of Simon Says. Not for fun, and not in life. Now an aspiring young artist, Charles enrolls in a private arts high school, not because he thinks he can learn anything from the teachers but because he wants to meet the "famous" Graeme Brandt, a student whose recently published novel touches a chord deep within him.
Seventeen-year-old Joss is a rebel--the daughter of a famous newscaster and a sperm donor; a wild girl who can play a mean harmonica; a student of time travel at the prestigious Centre for Neo-Historical Studies. This year, for the first time, the Centre has an alien student--Mavkel, from the planet Choria. And Mavkel has chosen Joss, of all people, as his roommate and study partner.
Carmen got the jeans at a thrift shop. They didn’t look all that great; they were worn, dirty, and speckled with bleach. On the night before she and her friends part for the summer, Carmen decides to toss them.
When the sky blue ball comes soaring over the fence, a high-school girl is confronted with the haunting memory of her childhood. A jealous teen lets her cousin go off alone with a dangerous capricorn, aware of the terrifying possibilities. A vulnerable young girl cunningly outwits a menacing stranger and exults in her newfound power, surviving the first of many small avalanches.
Frederick is the shy new boy, and Xio is the bubbly chica who lends him a pen on the first day of class. They become fast friends -- but when Xio decides she wants to be more than friends, Frederick isn't so sure. He loves hanging out with Xio and her crew, but he doesn't like her that way. Instead he finds himself thinking more and more about Victor, the captain of the soccer team.
The Soccer Field Is Empty is the story of teen love, steamy romance, friendship, loyalty, understanding, and ancient prejudice. Here is a tale that breaks the stereotypes of the ignorant and peers into the soul of two boys who want what we all want; to love and be loved. The story of Mark and Taylor, two sixteen-year-old high school athletes, is a tale of love and happiness torn asunder by a world that understands too late.
It’s time for eighteen-year-old James Sveck to begin his freshman year at Brown. Instead, he’s surfing the real estate listings, searching for a sanctuary—a nice farmhouse in Kansas, perhaps. Although James lives in twenty-first-century Manhattan, he’s more at home in the faraway worlds of Eric Rohmer or Anthony Trollope—or his favorite writer, the obscure and tragic Denton Welch.
Someone is killing the gay boys of Verona, Indiana, and only one gay youth stands in the way. He finds himself pitted against powerful foes, but finds allies in places he did not expect.
Someone Is Watching. Someone Knows. It was a nightmare come true for seventeen-year-old Ethan. It's hard hiding a secret. It's even harder keeping that secret when someone else knows. Who is the mysterious note-writer, the secret tormentor? Who is the enemy that hides among Ethan's friends and teammates?
Set in Alabama 1950s, 13-year-old Sonny has a dawning awareness of what segregation means.
Set in 1990's Brooklyn, Sons is the story of a teenage boy's struggle with his sexuality in the age of Hip-hop. In relentless prose, the novel moves from light to dark, through race, culture, class and religion to its tragic climax.
It's a horror-movie extravaganza in this companion to Brent Hartinger's Geography Club! Two books in one recount the stories of best friends Min and Russel who sign up to be extras on the set of a zombie film – then learn that there's nothing scarier than high school romance!
Nancy Dodd grew up privileged, at least for the early nineteen hundreds, until her father died, leaving an overbearing uncle as her only choice of a legal guardian. Instead of going to live with her mother’s brother, Nan is spirited away by her father’s less-acceptable family to become a player on vaudeville, staying in hiding until she reaches adulthood. Joining a troupe called the Five Larks, Nan begins her new life.
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 girl friend!
"Oh, I'm not your friend." My savior looked surprised. "It's just that this is MY school. I'm Maria Sweet -- Sugar. If you get bullied, it'll be when I say so."
"The Summer of My Discontent" is a tapestry of tales delving into life as a gay teen in a small Midwestern town. Dane is a sixteen-year-old runaway determined to start a new life of daring, love, and sex--no matter the cost to himself, or others. His actions bring him to the brink of disaster and only those he sought to prey upon can save him.
The setting is Sri Lanka, 1980, and it is the season of monsoons. Fourteen-year-old Amrith is caught up in the life of the cheerful, well-to-do household in which he is being raised by his vibrant Auntie Bundle and kindly Uncle Lucky. He tries not to think of his life “before,” when his doting mother was still alive.
A ten-year best friendship is put to the test when Chuck and Hal spend their first summer apart falling for two questionable mates: a sexy Saudi songstress and a smokin' hot French punk. As Chuck heads off to summer theater camp and Hal stays in their hometown, learning how to drive, they keep in touch via blogging, reporting to each other about their suddenly separate lives and often ridiculous romantic entanglements.
Kit Webster is hiding a secret. Carma, his best friend, has already figured it out, and pushes him to audition for the high school play, Talk. When he's cast as the male lead, he expects to escape his own life for a while and become a different person. What he gets instead is the role of a lifetime: Kit Webster.
This is a memoir that is lived in moments. The moments you know - when you see your parents' marriage dissolving, when you realize you're a boy who likes boys, when you speak the truth and don't know if it will be heard.
A collection of nine outstanding plays that were highlights from previous anthologies and one that appears in print for the first time represent the best plays from the first ten years of the acclaimed Young Playwrights Festival.
I know God doesn't make mistakes, and if I'm gay it's because that's what he wanted. What you wanted. And I think the challenge is to get everyone else to see that. This is their test, not mine.
This Time Around follows Jordan and Ralph as they become involved in a struggle with Reverend Wellerson, a TV evangelist, over the fate of gay youth centers. Wellerson is willing to stop at nothing to crush gay rights and who better to halt his evil plans than the most famous rock star in the entire world? While battling Wellerson, Jordan seeks to come to terms with his own past and learn more about the father he never knew.
Dylan is Belle's true love—maybe even her soulmate. Until one day when Dylan drops the ultimate bomb: he's gay. Where, Belle wonders, does that leave her? And how will the rest of their small town deal with an openly gay Homecoming King?
The third novel in the Roosevelt High School Series focuses on the difficult issue of a young man's struggle with his sexual orientation--a conflict made more difficult by his family's traditional Hispanic expectations.
I've discovered that if you wear a big enough hat, no one worries much about what s going on inside your head, says Cary. And no one, not even her boyfriend, Danny, knows about the things inside Cary s head. Especially the feelings she has for Wendy, a girl with bright green hair and hard-candy sadness in her eyes.
"Everybody says you and Colin were kissing." "What? That's ridiculous!" "For heaven's sake, Joe, if you and Colin want to kiss, you have every right to." "We did not kiss," I told her. Addie shrugged. "Whatever." What was it with my friends?
Karina has plenty to worry about on the last day of seventh grade: finding three Ds and a C on her report card again, getting laughed at by everyone again, being sent to the principal -- again. She'd like this to change, but with her and her sisters dodging their stepfather's fists every day after school, she doesn't have time to do much self-reflecting.
Life is going nowhere fast...until the night some freak wanders into the convenience store where Sam and Gilly are hanging out. He lets them in on a secret: The Witches' Carnival is nearby. If they travel fast, they might catch it.
LaVaughn is fifteen now, and she's still fiercely determined to go to college. But that's the only thing she's sure about. Loyalty to her father bubbles up as her mother grows closer to a new man. The two girls she used to do everything with have chosen a path LaVaughn wants no part of. And then there's Jody. LaVaughn can't believe how gorgeous he is...or how confusing. He acts like he's in love with her, but is he?
When Alex Beekman and his twin sister, Rita, move to town, Alex threatens sixteen-year-old Todd O'Connor's position on the varsity soccer team, as well as that of Randy Tovitch, the star striker. Randy starts a name-calling campaign, calling Alex "a fag" in order to force him from the team. As team members choose sides, Todd faces the loss of his girlfriend and learns a painful family secret from his beloved uncle.
Please believe Molly Swain when she tells you: "Never fall in love with a gay boy. And whatever you do, don't move to New York and invite said gay boy to live with you, to make a fresh start in a new city. After all, that was what I was trying to do. Yeah, I'm only eighteen, which is, as my father says, not old enough to know your head from your ass, but still, I should have known better. After all, I was valedictorian."
After his grandmother's death, eighteen-year-old Willie finds a box of old letters which explain many family secrets.
Graham Granger is intrigued by the new boy in school. Graham’s heart aches for a friend, and maybe a boyfriend, but is Josiah the answer to his dreams? Why is Bry Hartnett, the school hunk, taking an interest in Graham as well? When strange happenings begin to occur at Griswold Jr./Sr. High, Graham’s once boring life becomes more exciting than he can handle.
In a small New Jersey town a lonely boy walking along a highway one autumn evening meets the boy of his dreams, a boy who happens to have died decades ago and haunts the road. Awkward crushes, both bitter and sweet, lead him to face youthful dreams and childish fears. With a cast of offbeat friends, antiques, and Ouija boards, Vintage offers readers a memorable blend of dark humor, chills and love.
Nuclear devastation is the past. The need for water is the present. Can they survive to find a future? I watch the sun coming up on my right as I walk. We’ve only got about three hours now before it gets too hot and we have to stop. We’ve learned not to leave it too long, learned not to wait until the last minute to put up our tents and hide within their dubious shelter.
Ten years ago Francesca Lia Block made a dazzling entrance into the literary scene with what would become one of the most talked-about books of the decade: Weetzie Bat.
The close-knit residents of Hackett Island have never seen anyone quite like Lani Garver. Everything about this new kid is a mystery: Where does Lani come from? How old is Lani? And most disturbing of all, is Lani a boy or a girl?
There's something brewing in the town of Scrub Harbor and it's not just about changing the name from Scrub Harbor to Folly Bay. O'Neill has a secret. Adam is starting over. Christine has a crush. Gretchen has a cause. You'll get an earful getting to know them!
Two years ago, Jeff Hart was kidnapped at knifepoint. Now his kidnapper is releasing him to return home. But when Jeff finds his family, he feels shell-shocked and unable to tell anyone what happened. He can't believe that anyone-not even his family or friends-will understand what he went through. Jeff isn't the same person he was before, and he never will be again.
Noli, a smart, boyish teenage girl has fallen in love with T. J., the new boy at school. Cute, sensitive, and attentive, T. J. appears to be her soul mate, but much to Noli's dismay their intense relationship never becomes sexual.
In the not-too-impossible-to-imagine future, a gay Jewish man has been elected president of the United States. Until the governor of one state decides that some election results in his state are invalid, awarding crucial votes to the other candidate, and his fellow party member. Thus is the inspiration for couple Jimmy and Duncan to lend their support to their candidate by deciding to take part in the rallies and protests.
See the town. The town is quiet and small. The town is full of good, happy people. See the house. The house is pretty and blue. It has big front windows. See the windows shine. Shine, windows, shine.
"The time is the late 1970s - an age of gas shortages, head shops, and Saturday Night Fever. The place, suburban New Jersey. At a time when the teenagers around him are coming of age, Robin MacKenzie is coming undone. While "normal boys" are into cars, sports, and bullying their classmates, Robin enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother, spinning fantastic tales for her amusement in an intimate ritual he has come to love.
It is 1978 in the Twin Cities, and Kevin Doyle, a high school senior, is a marginal student in love with keggers, rock and roll, and-unbeknownst to anyone else-a boy in his class with thick eyelashes and a bad attitude. His mother Eileen died two years earlier when her car plunged into the icy waters of the Mississippi River, and since then Kevin's relationship with his father Patrick has become increasingly distant.
Jamie Crawford is the senior editor of the "Telegraph," her high school's newspaper, but the publication of her editorial in favor of the school's new policy to distribute condoms happens to coincide with the election of a new, highly conservative school board member. As a result, Jamie suddenly finds her editorial voice gagged.