• Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson. This is the same Maureen Johnson who wrote the splendid Devilish that I mentioned loving a couple months ago--one of the contenders for this year's Andre Norton Award.

  This is a mainstream YA novel centered on three high school girls before and half-way through their senior year. They are known as the "Bermudez Triangle" (Bermudez being last name of Nina, one of the three) who have been friends since grammar school. They are so tight they still use their school yard rituals. Nina, whose parents are comfortably off, is sent west to Stanford for a summer program in academic leadership; the other two girls, short, rebellious Avery (she's taken up smoking just because everyone, including her two friends, hates it) and tiny, fairy-like Mel, take a summer job as servers at a horrible dinner house called P.J. Mortimer's. (Ex-waitresses will wince in sympathy at the demeaning details, right down to the horrible manager, Bob.) Everything is fine because at least Avery and Mel have each other so they can laugh about the horrible job--and they meet a fellow-worker named Parker, whose sense of humor instantly jives with them both. He's attracted to Mel. As usual. (Avery notes wryly that without making the least effort, Mel inspires epic crushes in guys, causing them to listen to slow music and iron their clothes.) But complications ensue when Mel and Avery spend a night after work . . . and Avery idly wonders what it would be like to kiss Mel. Who has been hiding the same urge for quite a long time. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Nina's got the roommate from hell, which drives her out--to meet a crunchy-granola ecowarrior called Steve. At first she's intrigued but put off, but after an all-night study session he becomes human to her--and then the spark of attraction ignites.

  Johnson does not make this book a "gay Issue" book. Nor does she get into physical details. What she focuses on with humor, grace, and sympathy, is the emotional fallout of being teen, discovering attraction while still trying to cope with friendship with one's own gender, friendship with the other gender, and don't forget evolving plans for what one is going to do in the future. Those are tough enough, so what happens to friendship, whether old or new, whether between genders of within, when one suddenly finds oneself staring into the blinding sun of attraction? When you stare into the sun, everything else fades to shadow, and you stumble about half blind but it's so powerfully overwhelming, how can you possibly turn away? Add to that the complications of becoming a couple, whether same-gender or not, when you still have to get on with your life--whether at a distance (Nina) or close by (Avery and music school). What if one is, in fact, not gay, it's just . . . this one single person? Then there are the boys. Steve across the country, who messes up . . . and Parker near by, who does everything right--he hits every single note for the Modern Sensitive Male--and still ends up getting badly hurt. I thought it a terrific novel.

• Vintage: A Ghost Story--by Steve Berman. I didn't set out to write about "gay books" but as it happens, the three YAs I read in a row included gay characters. Berman's book is quite Goth--set around Halloween, Goth kids with their joint-smoking and Goth affect, depression, alienation . . . and the possibility that the dead who have died under tragic circumstances never actually rest.

  One night while walking down a deserted highway in September, the young first-person protagonist sees a handsome boy who is wearing a fifties costume, or is it a costume? We soon discover that he is the ghost of an athlete who met his death years before, and the town has known about this ghost walking the highway since 1957. But for the first time, Josh, the ghost, leaves the highway and follows someone, and even speaks to him. The hero goes to the cemetery to find out more, and is haunted by a whole lot more ghosts. These ghosts are not pleasant Caspar the Friendlies. And Josh's interest in the living boy is . . . well, an obsession. As, in fact, one might expect from a ghost.

  The story is vivid with detail, the characters real and appealing: his best friend Trace, the Goth girl who was the first person he met after he ran away from home. His Aunt Jan, who took him in though his own parents, in rejecting him, brought him very close to suicide. Trace's younger brother Second Mike--the first Mike having had a tragic history. There is a lot of grief, angst, anger in this story, but Berman skillfully makes it bearable with his humor, his ability to present interesting and appealing characters. His compassion for the struggles and emotions of teens, and with his eye for telling and interesting details. The horrid side of how gays are treated gets aired through memories, but we're not overwhelmed with Message--these flashbacks are integral to the story.

  It's a short book, I'd say for the savvy high schooler and above: as you'd expect with Goth kids, there is rough language, references to drugs, some vividly described intimate encounters. Above all it's a compassionate, even sweet tale, loving in all the right ways. Exciting, too, as the stakes are raised.

• City of Bones--by Cassandra Clare. This fantasy was simply terrific. I first became aware of Cassandra Clare through her incredibly funny "Secret Diaries" which riffed off the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings. I next encountered her with some other writing, making me want to read more by her. This is her first book, and it's so very cinematic that when it (inevitably) sells to Hollywood, the screenplay is right there in the text, it just needs to be typed into screenplay format.

  The heroine, Clary Fray, is a petite freckled artistic and totally normal teenage girl with a best friend totally normal music-geek guy named Simon. When they go to a club dance, she witnesses three tattoo-covered teenagers murder another teen--but victim disappears right in front of her eyes. This victim, who exhibited some really creepy behaviors before dying, turns out to be a demon. The killer teens--sarcastic, brilliant, mega-handsome Jace, and the tall, soignee Isabelle--are Shadowhunters (humans who hunt and kill demons), and Clary, a mundie (i.e., mundane human), should not be able to see them any more than the other dancers in the club. But before Clary can deal with these surprises, her mother, a painter named Jocelyn is kidnapped. Jocelyn is the only person who knows the whereabouts of The Mortal Cup, a dangerous magical item that turns humans into Shadowhunters. Clary must find the cup and keep it from a renegade sector of Shadowhunters bent on eliminating all nonhumans, including benevolent werewolves and friendly vampires. And the only help she's got are Jace, Isabella, Alec (Isabella's brother) and Simon. And the first three distrust her to varying degrees, and despise Simon.

  Discovery after discover raises the stakes, amid stylish and violent action. Meanwhile, teenage chemistry (straight and gay) is also going on, as the kids, who are fighting for their lives--and to protect the lives of those they love--discover that chemistry does not always provide clear sight. In fact, it can blind you to what's really important, especially when you have been starved of just normal family love most of your life.

  The adult characters are interesting, the universe well-thought out and fascinating. Clare's sense of timing and of place are stunning, and the wit and humor she uses to give the reader just the tiniest break from the tension (or to ramp it up) is masterly. I'd say, if you don't mind the question of one or two characters being gay, this one is fine for twelve and up--there's very little bad language, and though there's a lot of violence, with magical aid, it's no worse than that on prime time TV. And though the teens are very emotional, there's very little actual involvement other than a kiss or two. I wish, I wish, I wish the second one would come out soon.

• Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens--Jane Dunn. This isn't a complete biography of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor so much as a look at their respective childhoods and subsequent intersections of their lives. It does meander, re-introducing some historical figures over and over, and yet (after proving her veracity in rigorous research) exaperatingly dismissing the murder of David Riccio in a single line, saying it's "too well known" to repeat. Um, excuse me, but the entire purpose of the book was to sweep away some of the cobwebs around these queens, and reach past Elizabethan or Marian party lines and depict what really happened and why. Oh well, it was a sorry episode in a series of sorry episodes. She labors hard to be balanced between judgment and sympathy between each of these very different women. I was struck by the point she made about the effect of their educations. Anyway, it was pleasant reading if you enjoy Tudor history (there's good stuff on France's court and the Guises as well as Catherine de Medici); both my daughter and I liked it, she for the psychological insights, me for the descriptions from sources I have never seen.

Return to Currently Reading Menu

Note: Most links go to the book's page on Amazon.com.