Recently, we've seen a lot of discussion about the inclusion of LGBTQ fiction in YA. Jessica Verday's decision to drop out of the Wicked Pretty Things anthology comes to mind. While thinking about the very short supply of gay and lesbian YA on shelves, I realized something: while gay and lesbian fiction is under represented for sure, young adult fiction dealing with bisexuality is almost non-existant.
This surprised me. Growing up, even in the Bible Belt part of the South, I had more friends who identified themselves as bisexual than as homosexual, but when I tried to think of YA fiction that depicted bisexuality, I drew a blank. I can come up with a list of gay and lesbian YA (a short one, sadly, but still a list), however, I found myself having to ask friends and followers on Twitter for help finding bisexuality in YA.
What I found upon asking for recommendations was that many people recommended the same books. I was advised to read Boyfriends with Girlfriends by Alex Sanchez and the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr, but aside from those only a few others were mentioned, and most of those who responded to my plea for requests admitted that they struggled to think of any.
I did come across this in my research, however. Lee Wind runs a fantastic blog that promotes LGBTQ fiction and lists examples of books featuring these themes in the sidebar. If you're interested in this topic, it's a great list to check out, full of great books to add to your TBR pile. But even in this list, bisexual fiction seemed to have the fewest titles under its category.
We've talked about including LGBTQ themes in YA before, but I wonder if we're forgetting letters sometimes. We remember the L and the G, but but the B, the T, and even the Q get ignored most of the time.
What are your thoughts on this? Why does it seem that bisexual - and also transgender - fiction are so hard to find in YA? What can we do about it? And, of course, if you have examples of YA books that feature LGBTQ themes, please suggest them! We'd love to hear your thoughts.
There’s a little bit of Rachel in each of RIVAL’s main characters. And there’s a littleRachel in me. While the events in my book are purely fictional, every ensemble and performance contributed to the spark that would one day become RIVAL. So, since YA Highway often focuses on travel, I thought I’d take you on a trip down memory lane to visit some of those key Rachel Berry moments. Ready? Here we go.
