Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me--"I'm just willing what I'm feeling to be true. I'm willing myself to believe this is real."

Title: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me

Author: Mariko Tamaki; Illustrations by Rosemary Valero-O'Connell


LGBTQ+ Representation: Main and supporting characters are lesbians and background characters are queer


Content Waring: Abortion


What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): Freddy is madly in love with her girlfriend, Laura, but Laura (who is popular, funny, cute, thoughtless, and MEAN) keeps breaking up with her. Freddy's friends can't understand why she keeps going back to Laura Dean, and their on-again, off-again relationship nearly causes Freddy to lose her best friend.


What I think (in 250 words or fewer): Laura Dean is one of those books that I can see non-YA readers (or those who prefer their books to be moralistic in content) scoffing at. Teenage Freddy is besotted with Laura, who is just the WORST. I strongly identify with Rainbow Rowell's blurb on the back of the book:

Leah on the Offbeat--"It's like it doesn't even matter if I like my body, because there's always someone there to remind me that I shouldn't"

Title: Leah on the Offbeat

Author: Becky Albertalli


LGBTQ+ Representation: Main character and supporting characters are bisexual; secondary characters are gay.


What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): Leah Burke is getting ready to finish her senior year, and in some ways, she's totally OVER high school, but in other ways, she doesn't want anything to change. Prom is coming up, friends are hooking up and breaking up, and college is starting to seem very close. Also, Leah has not told her friends that she is bisexual and is crushing hard on her friend Abby, who is (probably?) completely straight.


What I think (in 250 words or fewer): I need to apologize to all of the fanfiction writers out there that I scoffed at when they began to ship Leah and Abby. I was totally NOT on board with that ship; Abby was with Nick and that's where I thought she would stay. However, this book did a good job of changing my mind and wanting Abby and Leah to be a couple.

The Cardboard Kingdom--"I'm a SORCERESS . . . in EXILE"

Title: The Cardboard Kingdom

Authors: Chad Sell, with Jay Fuller, David Demeo, Katie Schenkel, Manuel Betancourt, Molly Muldoon, Vid Alliger, Cloud Jacobs, Michael Cole, Barbara Perez Marquez, and Kris Moore (posthumously).


LGBTQ+ Representation: Several gender nonconforming characters and at least two characters who might be gay.


What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): All the children in the neighborhood spend the summer playing fantasy characters, including an evil sorceress and her minion, a huntress, a handsome prince and dashing rogue, a beast, a gargoyle, a robot, an animal queen, and more. The children make their own imaginative costumes and set pieces out of cardboard and furniture; they don't always get along perfectly, but solve their conflicts appropriately, often by "battling" each other in their cardboard kingdom.


What I think (in 250 words or fewer): Every time I read a graphic novel, I think "I should read more graphic novels." It just takes a bit of work at the beginning to force my ADHD brain to "read" the pictures as well as the text, but once I get into the story, I usually really enjoy it. The Cardboard Kingdom was no exception--I loved it, both the pictures and the story.

American Library Association's 2020 Rainbow Book List Announced!

Congratulations to the authors on the 2020 Rainbow Book List!

The Top 10 Books on the 2020 Rainbow Book List

Click here to visit my newly updated Rainbow Book List 2020 page to read my reviews of the books on the list.

Many of these books are available from the Greensboro Public Library.