Alana’s coming out was relatively easy, but a significant part of the story centres on her adjusting to her own queerness and how and where she fits in: “I came out and no one hates me or whatever, and that’s great. But I know that people are looking at me differently.”
Despite the familiar love-triangle set-up, Horne’s YA debut is hugely entertaining thanks to the way she skilfully unpacks Alana’s self-doubts, anxieties and a string of bad decisions. Her leading lesbian is full of charm, but a grittier storyline emerges when Alana fails to show up for the girl she claims to love. Don’t Let It Break Your Heart is as light as the meringues our heroine likes to bake, but with a chewy centre that explores a girl’s desire to live a life beyond everyone’s expectations.
There is nothing remotely sweet about Cuckoo (Titan), Gretchen Felker-Martin’s brutal novel about a group of LGBTIQA+ teens violently abducted from their homes with the support of their so-called loving families and friends.
They find themselves at Camp Resolution – trigger warning – a barbaric conversion-therapy centre located in the Utah desert and run by Pastor Eddie and his twisted camp “counsellors”. “Praying the gay away” will be the least of their worries when an unnamed evil begins to consume their minds, bodies and souls. Cuckoo features a rainbow of characters, but the core group, Felix, Nadine, Jo, Gabe, Shelby and John are the standouts. We get to know their histories, desires, and regrets. Their bond is forged by a single, unifying quest: to survive amid horrific circumstances and escape an entity so grotesque.
Felker-Martin’s writing, broken up into three acts, is rage-fuelled and unapologetically defiant. And despite the fact Cuckoo shares considerable DNA with Stephen King’s IT and both film versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, her insights into the treatment of LGBTIQA+ people make it feel like reinvention.
Just as Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale can be read as social horror, Cuckoo is a distorted mirror that reflects what’s happening in our own world as we witness LGBTIQA+ basic rights and protections being eroded daily.
If you’re looking for a more uplifting reading experience, Gary Lonesborough’s tender I’m Not Really Here (Allen & Unwin) is a coming-out story about Jonah, a queer Indigenous teenager who, along with his dad and twin brothers, is mourning the loss of his mum, as well as adjusting to life in the small town of Patience.
Harley, the son of a family friend is tasked with helping Jonah settle in at the local high school. Physically, the two teens could not be more different – Harley’s tall and fit with a chiselled chest and a love of footy; Jonah’s shorter and wider, and hasn’t played footy for ages. Jonah’s lack of confidence, connected to a significant issue in his past that remains unresolved, is holding him back emotionally, but his budding relationship with Harley paves the way to a new and exciting beginning.
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In Jonah, Lonesborough has created a hugely relatable and layered character who is also proud of his culture and has a deep trust in his own queerness. This confidence and self-belief don’t stop ugly racist and homophobic encounters from happening, but he defies them with courage and wit.
Lonesborough’s writing style has both an elegance and an ease and expertly captures Jonah’s struggles with body image (“I’m not anything but a gay fat boy listening to Kylie Minogue under a tree”), guilt over his mother’s death, finding new friends and his dream of becoming a writer.
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