Sunday Salon: Struck Blogless

Ten days ago, my laptop forgot how to connect to the internet. I've been informed that the only hope for recovery is to perform radical surgery--wipe it clean and start again. I've done the prep (saved all my files) and am just waiting for . . . I'm not sure what I'm waiting for, actually. The stars to line up correctly? A miracle? Courage?

In any case, blogging without the internet is difficult. Yes, I can write posts on my computer, transfer them to another computer, and post them. That's what I'm doing now. But that extra step kind of takes the fun out of it. Also, I can't remember my Bloglines password, so the only way for me to read blogs is to type in each address one by one. And that's so twentieth century! What's the fun in that?

I have been reading, though, and the book I finished this morning was almost perfect. Heh heh, I crack myself up. The book was Almost Perfect, by Brian Katcher, which I found at the library after reading a review on Life in the Thumb.

Logan is a senior in a small-town Missouri high school, recovering from the break-up with his girlfriend of three years, when he meets a new student. Sage is uniquely attractive, funny, and gets along with Logan's friends in a way his ex-girlfriend never did. Logan is sure Sage is the right girl for him, until he learns that, while Sage identifies herself as a girl, her anatomy is male.

Katcher presents readers with very "real" and likeable characters, without glossing over the difficulties and complications Sage faces, as well as the confusion Logan wrestles with. I have no doubt that getting to know Sage from Logan's point of view will be an eye-opening experience for many teens. Just as most things in life aren't black-and-white, people can't always be neatly divided into males vs. females. I'll be passing this one on to my son in a year or two, and highly recommend it for high school aged teens.

I want to say this was the best book about a transgendered teen that I've ever read, but I can't think of any to compare it to. Are there others?

by Alison Jakel

Shouting the name of this challenge

This post is both my announcement that I'll be joining the challenge to read books by and about gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people (and how convenient that I failed so miserably in 2009--I can recycle my old reading list! Though I'm hoping to add enough to reach 12 books) and my answer to the January mini-challenge question.

The Question: Why is this particular challenge important to you?

Answer #1: Why must this be the challenge that dare not speak its name?

Yes, I just answered a question with a question. But, truly, I can't think of a better way to put it. I don't understand the shame in naming the challenge and I want to do my part to put it out there that sexual orientation shouldn't have to be a hush-hush secret. So I'm here to shout out the name of the challenge.

The gay! And lesbian! And bisexual! And transgendered! And others who don't fit themselves into any of those categories! challenge.

Answer #2: Because of teens like Robby, whose post about why this challenge is important to him just about broke my heart. For kids who are in the process of figuring themselves out and/or coming out, books with positive gay characters (and the occasional ornery one) are crucial. In some cases, life-or-death crucial.

Answer #3: Because of my many friends who have found love with people who are the same gender as they are.

Answer #4: And because of my friends who haven't.

Answer #5: Because I'm raising two delightful boys and I want them to know I don't give a rat's hiney whether they or their friends are gay or straight, as long as they'll keep bringing their friends to dinner. Having these books strewn around the house along with all the other books I read sends a message to them about who we are as a family. We're fairly mainstream in a lot of ways, but we're standing on the side of love, and we're not embarrassed to say so.

Down to the Bone--Mayra Lazara Dole (book review)

Down to the Bone is fiction, but inspired by a true incident in author Mayra Lazara Dole's life:

At fourteen, my first love and I were thrown out of a Miami Catholic high school due to a love letter she sent me about our first time making love. . . . They read the letter to my mom who’d been dragged from one of her factory jobs to attend the infamous finger-pointing experience (finding out her little girl was a total homo)–Mami was so shocked she punished me harshly: I could never again see or speak to my beloved. (Mayra Lazara Dole, in an interview with Teen Book Review)

Down the the Bone begins as Laura experiences the same humiliation Dole recalls, and the subsequent rejection by her school, her mother, and many of her friends. Laura and the other characters are Cuban Americans in Miami, and one strength of this book is that it's so thoroughly enmeshed in that vibrant community. Everything, from the dialogue to the food to the attitudes towards homosexuality, is Cuban to the core. Me, I thought the characters were over-the-top, but what do I know? Dole herself says (as quoted on Chasing Ray) , "Cubans are over-the-top and I’m always asked to drastically tone down my characters." So, apparently I was experiencing a bit of culture shock.

I don't think it was just the culture shock that kept me from connecting with Laura, though. Her focus on who she wants to kiss and who she's willing to be seen with made it hard for me to take her seriously. Her "I'm not gay, I'm just in love with a girl" would have rung truer for me had she struggled at all with her feelings for the girl in question. Instead she's so cotton-candy sweet in-love that I had to brush my teeth afterwards and instead of feeling sorry about their separation, I was relieved. Let's just say this: private nicknames like "Pookie" and "Scrunchy" should not be legalized for public consumption, no matter the genders of the happy lovebirds.

So, not one of those YA books that I (twenty-plus years past the target audience age) fell in love with. But as an alternative to the plethora of books out there in which blonde, blue-eyed girls obsess over who they're willing to be seen with and which boys they want to kiss? I hope Ms. Dole has more where this one came from.

The Soundtrack: Here's Pitbull taking you on a tour of his hometown while singing Ay Chico. If you refuse to listen to rap or are bothered by mildly suggestive lyrics (the Spanish part is fairly tame, basically he's singing for everybody to get down, don't be afraid to stick your tongue out, and he doesn't want water he wants a drink), by all means turn the video's sound down and listen to Tito Puente or Gloria Estefan instead--the faces of Miami are worth watching to any soundtrack. Pitbull, born Armando Christian Pérez, was born in Miami in 1981 to first generation Cuban immigrants, who raised him right: with poetry. They made him memorize the works of nineteenth century Cuban poet José Martí.