LGBT Fiction Annotation

Title: Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel

Author: Sara Farizen

Genre: LGBQ

Published: October 7th 2014

Number of Pages: 306

Setting:  fictional school setting

Time Period: Modern

Plot Summary: The story unfolds in a predominantly white school, Armstead Academy, where the main character Leila has to accept her feelings for another girl, Saskia, after almost making it out of high school and ignoring how she truly felt. Through the eyes of an Iranian girl, living in different worlds than her classmate, the reader gets the opportunity to learn to relate with someone who doesn’t fit the mold of an average American high school girl. We learn about different cultures and how they play into each other, also how race and sexuality is a factor in Leila’s story. This is an interesting coming-out/coming-of-age stories.

Characteristics that fit into a LGBT Fiction:

Coming out theme: The plot revolves around Leila coming to except her true feelings for Saskia, and how it makes her start coming out.

Romance: This fits in with the shock of falling in love with the new girl, Saskia, and their later encounters with one another.

Acceptance/Denial of sexuality: Can see both of these elements with Leila’s Persian community and her friends at school.

Similar Author and Books

·         Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz, has a similar theme of not being able to fit in with society.

·         No One Needs to Know by Amanda Grace, Mandy Hubbard, the main character has to come to terms with her own feelings, which she didn’t know she had.

·         Dirty London by Kelley York, shares a similar plot of trying to stay hidden in high school, but to no avail.

Relevant Non-Fiction Works and Authors

·         Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman

·         The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman

·         The Trouble with Normal by Michael Warner