Whenever we look at representation in media, entertainment or storytelling we always reference visual mediums such as films, tv shows or social media. With that comes a lot of complications on proper representation. I’ve rarely ever seen my identity properly depicted in these stories, as a Filipino queer person who always strives to find the best in authentic storyelling. Even for the ones that do focus and centre on POC, LGBTQ+ or both types of protagonists, I still feel like it’s very few and far between. Which is why recently I’ve been trying to dive back into the world of literature.
What’s interesting is that in visual media I always see a cry for more diversity but in books, it seems that’s the opposite case. The breadth of books beyond the ones recommended on this list have a wide range of diverse authors that tell their own stories that are authentic to their own experiences and tell it well. This is especially true for one particular genre which is the wildly popular YA (Young Adult) novels. It seems as though many YA authors are a part of one or multiple minority groups whether they’re women, LGBTQ+, racialized or identify as a disabled person.
Own Voices novels are a term in the book community to refer to authors who come from an underrepresented or minority group writing characters from their own personal perspectives and experiences. These are trans authors writing trans stories, women writing female driven stories, etc. These authors understand these minority characters because they themselves are part of that identity, rather than writing from an outsiders point of view. This list covers “own voices” novels within the YA genre. Although it may be targeted towards the teen demographic, these stories stand on its own to appeal and be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of their age, gender, race or any form of identity.
- Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
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“It could’ve been easy to say I was hurt because I’m trans, because someone singled me out for my identity, but there’s something weird about that – something off, about suggesting that my identity is the thing that brought me any sort of pain. It’s the opposite. Being trans brings me love. It brings me happiness. It gives me power.”
― Kacen Callender, Felix Ever After
This is the first book on this list and the latest one I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It’s the book that inspired the creation of this list and that already should give you hints as to how special the story is when reading it. The book follows Felix Love (an ironic last name for someone who’s never been in love) who is attending a summer school for art kids for extra credit to get into Brown University through winning this competitive entrance scholarship. He splits his days between staying with his single dad or at his best friend Ezra’s apartment. Felix is also an out transgender male and does have his fair share of obstacles that he faces with his identity. All of his worst fears come to life when Felix’s past identity is exposed at his school and gets threatening texts from a mysterious person who’s out to convince Felix him that he isn’t valid. He suspects one of his ex-friend turned enemy from his class is the obvious suspect and decides to catfish him for revenge but unexpectedly falls in love with him in the process.
Felix Ever After is a masterful book that tells such an underrepresented and unseen story of a black, queer, transman that is so well told with a strong plot and characters. Told from the perspective of Felix himself, readers will find it so easy to empathize and fall in love with him. If there’s two words to perfectly describe this book it’s real and rich. It’s real in showing all of Felix’s confusion regarding his gender identity, which takes a different route typical trans narratives. Felix knows he’s trans but does not necessarily fully identify as a boy. Seeing his process of figuring out the right identity that matches him educates readers on the broad spectrum of gender identity. The queer friends and safe spaces that he goes to for guidance are beautifully shown, especially with his best friend Ezra. A unique, subtle touch the book adds is that not although Felix has a “friend group” he isn’t close with everybody the way he is with Ezra. The group dynamic was an aspect that the book really got right and it’s realistic in how everyone in the friend group is closer with other people in the group than others. This diverse cast of characters each have their own layers of personality and complexity that we don’t normally see in other stories.The way the book paints a beautiful portrait of queer teen life in NYC also adds to the richness of the story. There are elements of queer culture sprinkled throughout, such as safe spaces Felix goes to for managing his transition like Callen-Lorde. A real health center in New York that helps LGBTQ+ individuals get the necessary health services they need. There book visits iconic queer locations like the Stonewall Inn and of course, features a pride parade. All these details to the setting give the already groundbreaking story more life.
The author, Kacen Callender, breathes so much life into this world and these characters through his beautiful written prose. It’s easy to see how deeply personal this story is to the author as Callender is a black, queer, transmale himself which gives the book a layer of authenticity that couldn’t be achieved without his specific perspective. The greatest achievement he makes with telling a story like Felix Ever After is that it shows a realistic but also authentic and joyful portrayal of a growing queer, trans boy. Callender is a great balancing act between showing the pain, struggle and dysphoria but it isn’t just focused on that. It also focuses on the joys of being young, queer, aspiring artist in NYC. There’s also so many layers to Felix that go beyond just his sexual and gender identity. He is a passionate artist who wants to make it in order to support him and his father, who has given him so much in order for him to pursue his dreams. Felix wants to experience love for the first time and understand what that feels like. The book is able to not just give him a beautiful love story but add an emotional love triangle that goes in directions you don’t expect. Felix is just a regular person like everyone else and deservedly gets his own story where people just like him finally get to be seen.
- The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed
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“Silence does not mean yes. No can be thought and felt but never said. It can be screamed silently on the inside. It can be in the wordless stone of a clenched fist, fingernails digging into palm. Her lips sealed. Her eyes closed. His body just taking, never asking, never taught to question silence”
― Amy Reed, The Nowhere Girls
The Nowhere Girls follows three different female protagonists navigating the world of rape culture within their school. If that doesn’t already sound intriguing to you I don’t know what will but let me try. The story follows Grace, Erin, Rosina. Grace Salter is the new girl in town who moves from her old community after her Southern baptist mom turned radically liberal. She attends the town school, Prescott High, at first wants to be invisible but finds out about Lucy Moynihan, who used to live at her old home and was driven out of town after accusing the popular guys at school of gang rape. Grace meets two other outsiders in her school, Erin and Rosina, to get justice for Lucy. They create the anonymous Nowhere Girls all girls group to resist and fight against the sexist culture at their school. As the group slowly starts to gain momentum, they grow in numbers and it becomes a movement that becomes more than just sex, transforming the lives of the characters and the community they inhabit.
The great standout about this book is its wholly diverse cast of female characters. Each girl comes from a different background that makes the book groundbreaking to feature all of these identities in one story. Grace is a white, religious girl from the South and also plus-sized but the book doesn’t try to simply focus on just that part of her character. Rosina Suarez is a queer, punk Mexican girl from a conservative family but her main character arc comes from her desire to pursue music instead of waitressing at her uncles restaurant. Erin Delillo is an autistic girl who is a Star Trek nerd and loves marine biology, with her story focusing on how she navigates her own unique world and tries to do things like other girls, such as have a boyfriend. The way these girls from very different lifestyles come together to fight against a common issue that harms women is thrilling and empowering to read.
Amy Reed is a female author with a strong voice who isn’t afraid to talk about difficult subject matter. Even though not all the female protagonists necessarily match her real life experiences, as she is a not a queer Latina like Rosina, she is still able to write about universal experiences relating to women. She is able to give each of the women a distinct voice to separate their personalities but also tie them all together through the main conflict of wanting to end rape culture and sexual assault at their school. Each character is distinctly layered and complex and there are elements of relatability to all of them. Reed masterfully weaves the three protagonists’ stories together to give them a proper character arc. She doesn’t shy away from feminist issues like sexism, rape and misogyny and the book is a fierce, hard hitting story thats ideas will stick with you long after you finish reading.
- Jack of Hearts (and other parts) by L.C. Rosen
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My first time getting it in the butt was kind of weird. I think it’s going to be weird for everyone’s first time, though.
― Lev A.C. Rosen, Jack of Hearts
A glorious queer comedy with colourful characters, Jack of Hearts is a rare book that is unapologetically raunchy but surprisingly educational as well. The book follows titular character Jack, who is gay, fashionable and has a lot of sex. That’s essentially the basis of his character at the start of the book. He has a wild sex life that constantly becomes the gossip at his school. Things for Jack turn for the worse however when he starts a sex advice column to help out his friends blog. His notoriety grows even more and he starts to receive mysterious love letter notes from an admirer that quickly turns into a manipulative stalker. This leads to a mystery where Jack and his friends try to uncover who this stalker is before this obsession goes too far.
While reading this book there are two other titles that it’s reminiscent of. If you take the movie Love, Simon and the show Sex Education and make them have sex with each other, their child would definitely be Jack of Hearts. It has that fun, sweet coming of age high school feel of Love, Simon and the secret love letter notes reminded me of the emails Simon gets from his secret admirer. Jack giving sex advice to students through a column definitely relaters to Otis from Sex Education giving out sex advice. Though the book uses elements from other high school stories, it distinctly has its own original voice. Jack’s secret admirer is more of a creep that gives the book a darker mystery compared to the cuter love story between Simon and Blue in Love, Simon. The book is also way more raunchier and more queer than Sex Education.
This is all due to the authentic voice of queer author L.C. Rosen, whose own unique perspective allows him to tell a groundbreaking story like this. Whereas in teen storylines the queer characters are subjected to side characters who serve as the comic relief, Rosen puts them front and center in their own story. Jack is a bold, fashionable and unapologetically sexual gay man, something we rarely ever seen in narratives. Not only is it incredibly funny, filthy and fun but the plot of Jack running a sex advice column gives Rosen the opportunity to teach teens about queer sex. From anal sex, orgy’s, threesomes and the danger of fetishizations, this book lays it all out with no hesitations. L.C. Rosen is a criminally underrated queer author that deserves more attention and the types of stories he’s bringing to queer kids everywhere is nescessary and desperately needed in a genre that are rarely as daring as this one.
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
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“The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
One of the most critically acclaimed and popular queer novels of the 21st century, Aristotle and Dante is a sumptuous treat that is required reading in the YA genre telling underrepresented storylines. The book is set in the hot summer of 1987 and follows Aristotle Mendoza, a 15 year old loner who befriends another loner boy in Dante Quintana. The two Mexican-American boys meet at a swimming pool and form a connection that becomes something more special than either one of them have ever anticipated.
Aristotle and Dante is the type of coming of age YA story that is beautifully told that it sticks with you way after you turn the last page. The plot is fairly simple, as it mainly follows Aristotle dealing with his brother being in prison and his family pretending as if his brother no longer exists. He is also friendless and short tempered, finding it difficult to relate to and understand teens his own age. It isn’t until he meets Dante that he slowly starts to open up and connect with someone. Throughout the book, the two connect when Dante teaches Ari how to swim. They also bond over literature and poetry which Dante also teaches Ari about. We see the contrast between the boy’s family life as Ari is fascinated by Dante’s unique intellectual father and the bond they share. The book is more slice of life and character driven than the other titles on this list, but that is what makes it unique and special. It’s a story about two boys growing up together and dealing with their ethnicity, burgeoning sexuality and all the complications and joy that comes with that.
The author, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, has one of the most beautiful writing styles I’ve ever read from a YA author. His prose is unique and lyrical, giving you as the reader a strong visual presentation of the story that enriches the story and characters. There’s so many quotes that stand out in the novel that fits perfectly into the thought processes of these boys but teaches life lessons to the readers as well. Sáenz is Mexican American himself and also gay you can tell a lot of his own personal perspectives and philosophies are shown through the eyes of the two protagonists. Its a sweet, wonderfully ethereal love story that develops into something so intimate that only a Sáenz could write with his understnafing of what it means to be queer in this specific point in time and setting.
It’s a novel that is highly acclaimed within the YA genre and thankfully it isn’t the last we’ll read from these characters. Sáenz has been teasing a sequel for years now and readers can finally get a chance to see this story continue in Aristotle and Dante Dive Into the Waters of the World out October 12th, 2021. So if you haven’t got the chance to read this gorgeous story yet, now might be the perfect time to do so.
- Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
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“When your innocence is stripped from you, when your people are denigrated, when the family you came from is denounced and your tribal ways and rituals are pronounced backward, primitive, savage, you come to see yourself as less than human. That is hell on earth, that sense of unworthiness. That’s what they inflicted on us.”
― Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse
This was a book I read back in high school for my mandatory English class which was one of the first years where they changed the curriculum to focusing on Indigenous reconciliation and literature. Don’t let the fact that this was an English class reading drive you away from reading the book however, as it was probably the best story I read during high school. Indian Horse follows the aptly named Saul Indian Horse, an alcoholic who is reluctant to help himself as he’s staying in this treatment centre. When contemplating what led him to this point in his life, the book dives into Saul’s past in 1960s Canada as an Indigenous kid. It delves into the story of this kid during a time in Canadian history where there were residential schools and kids would be stripped away of their Indigenous culture and experienced traumatizing events at these schools.Out of all the books on this list, Indian Horse is probably the most graphic and difficult to read. Straying far away from sugar coating the harsh realities of residential schools, the book features scenes of abuse, sexual assault and the mental health issues these kids had to face during this time in history. This is the most unconventional type of YA novel compared to the rest. It doesn’t have any sweeping romances or deals with the complication and joys of friendship or high school. It’s much more bleak compared to the majority of books in the genre. Although I’m making this book sound like the most bleak story ever told, it isn’t without any hope at all. What drives Saul forward even in the worst phase of his life is through his love of hockey. As distinctly Canadian as that sounds, it’s an uplifting and inspiring part of the story to read as Saul is a passionate dreamer like all the rest of us.
This book was written by the late author Richard Wagamese, who is Indigenous and knows this part of his history well. He shows his ability to draw effective stories from point of views rarely seen in books. Wagamese is Ojibway like Saul and his family and although he himself has never attended a residential school, he was still affected by the system as members of his family did. This is a triumphant book and Wagamese puts a lot of empathy and grace into his words. The importance of own voice novels is not just to provide authenticity, but to also tell strong, noteworthy stories too rarely seen in books, movies, TV, etc.