Hidden Treasures of a Middle School Library

[vampyreranger]

I was in eighth grade when I read my first honest-to-God gay novel. It was tucked in the stacks of my ghetto middle school's tiny library, sitting there innocuously as though it wasn't about to blow my mind. I stole it from the library in fear of anyone finding out I was a lesbian from my interest in a "gay book". I pored over it at home and fell in love with its realistic and kind portrayal of teen homosexuality. The novel was Peter by Kate Walker.

Peter is about a a fifteen year old Australian boy aptly named Peter. He struggles with acceptance and tries to find it in a group of rough bikers and by having sex with a girl he isn't even interested in. But all he's really interested in is photography. He meets his brother's college friend, David, and his whole world changes as he realizes he's strongly attracted to him. The rest of the book is about Peter's struggle for acceptance and to find himself. It's a universal story, tenderly written, and wonderfully infused with non-judgment from the authoress. I'd recommend it for anyone and everyone. 

My wife found this being discarded . . .

[merlinpendragon]

by the university library she works in.  It seems to have been donated.

Title:  Bridal Journey
Author:  Dale Van Every

ISBN:  0553231294

From the back cover:

1778 - the rich Ohio wilderness purchased with men's blood and women's tears.  As the wedding party travelled through the trackless forest, the Shawnees fell upon them, butchering and scalping.  But one fanatical warrior kept the golden-haired bride alive as a trophy.  When he finished with her, he would sacrifice her to his god in a long, slow, torturous ritual.  Dale Van Every tells the violent and exciting sotry of the men and women who suffered and fought for the untold riches of the Allegheny frontier.

Another of my wife's discoveries . . .

[merlinpendragon]

Title:  A Severed Head
Author:  Iris Murdoch

ISBN:  0140020039

From the back cover:

As macabre as a Jacobean tragedy, as frivolous as a Restoration comedy, Iris Murdock's fifth novel takes sombre themes - adultry, incest, castration, violence and suicide - and yet succeeds in making of them a book that is brilliantly enjoyable.