A tapestry of the gay teenage experience—frayed edges repaired with earnest love and care.
A debut YA novel offers a tale of reaching out, conflict, and acceptance.
Wyatt Yarrow is caught between a rock and a hard place. He’s a closeted gay teenager, surrounded by deep-rooted homophobia in the small town of Lincolnville, Oregon. Not only that, he’s also a devoted history nerd who even makes videos about his favorite subjects. In other words, Wyatt’s bully, Jonathon Rails, has plenty of ammunition. None of that is news, but when Wyatt’s best (and only) friend, Mackenzie Miller, starts romantically pursuing him, he reaches a whole new level of isolation. Retreating into history books, Wyatt still finds some respite in his favorite subject: President Abraham Lincoln. What’s more, Wyatt’s research leads him to a shocking discovery: Lincoln was in love with another man. Armed with this information, Wyatt hopes that it can bring about some newfound acceptance for gay people and maybe drum up customers for the family business, a bed-and-breakfast themed after Lincoln’s life that’s struggling to stay afloat. Wyatt posts his evidence online, thinking that he’s about to see change for the better. But what he gets instead is an out-of-control controversy, threatening to cost him everything as it grows and spreads way beyond Lincolnville’s borders. Far from having his problems solved, Wyatt finds himself lost and confused, struggling to provide more proof and discovering who he is when pushed against the wall. The novel’s premise is a real hook, lending Wind’s complex story a sense of gravitas beyond the personal narrative. Add to that the thorough research behind Wyatt’s discovery (and the end notes that go along with it), and readers have something with real potential to influence and educate on top of entertaining. If there’s any fault to be found, it’s a lack of subtlety. Parts of the narrative and some of the characters’ actions feel exaggerated or dated, ranging from large public gestures and dramatically timed changes of heart to the level of blatant intolerance on display, with the gym teacher casually using homophobic slurs, for instance. The threats and pressures heaped on Wyatt and his family also register as somewhat divorced from more contemporary breeds of harassment and bullying. But throughout all of this, Wyatt’s need to feel connected and accepted is palpable and genuine, which makes up for the inconsistencies.
A tapestry of the gay teenage experience—frayed edges repaired with earnest love and care.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73222-811-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: I'm Here. I'm Queer. What The Hell Do I Read?
Review Posted Online: July 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.
In this YA graphic novel, an alienated Métis girl learns about her people’s Canadian history.
Métis teenager Echo Desjardins finds herself living in a home away from her mother, attending a new school, and feeling completely lonely as a result. She daydreams in class and wanders the halls listening to a playlist of her mother’s old CDs. At home, she shuts herself up in her room. But when her history teacher begins to lecture about the Pemmican Wars of early 1800s Saskatchewan, Echo finds herself swept back to that time. She sees the Métis people following the bison with their mobile hunting camp, turning the animals’ meat into pemmican, which they sell to the Northwest Company in order to buy supplies for the winter. Echo meets a young girl named Marie, who introduces Echo to the rhythms of Métis life. She finally understands what her Métis heritage actually means. But the joys are short-lived, as conflicts between the Métis and their rivals in the Hudson Bay Company come to a bloody head. The tragic history of her people will help explain the difficulties of the Métis in Echo’s own time, including those of her mother and the teen herself. Accompanied by dazzling art by Henderson (A Blanket of Butterflies, 2017, etc.) and colorist Yaciuk (Fire Starters, 2016, etc.), this tale is a brilliant bit of time travel. Readers are swept back to 19th-century Saskatchewan as fully as Echo herself. Vermette’s (The Break, 2017, etc.) dialogue is sparse, offering a mostly visual, deeply contemplative juxtaposition of the present and the past. Echo’s eventual encounter with her mother (whose fate has been kept from readers up to that point) offers a powerful moment of connection that is both unexpected and affecting. “Are you…proud to be Métis?” Echo asks her, forcing her mother to admit, sheepishly: “I don’t really know much about it.” With this series opener, the author provides a bit more insight into what that means.
A sparse, beautifully drawn story about a teen discovering her heritage.Pub Date: March 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55379-678-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HighWater Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
