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Title: Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden ISBN: 0-374-40414-3 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 01 September, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.71 (91 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Restrained, Tender Love Story
Comment: Annie on My Mind is not hip. It is not the seminal (excuse me, ovarial) novel Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown. It is not the 1995 film "The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love." It is not a sexy, rollicking romp that takes us from the softball field into the bedroom. It is not a political/erotic expose of young New York lesbians.
What Annie on My Mind is is a gentle love story told with restraint and tenderness by Nancy Garden. Liza and Annie are two 17-year-old New Yorkers who meet, become friends, and slowly realize that their feelings encompass more than friendship. They are confused, curious, tentative and intense with each other. They have no road map to guide their emotions and behavior, no understanding friends or adults to reassure them or to celebrate their relationship. Their love for each other feels so natural and good that neither is ashamed of the relationship, but they still keep it a secret from everyone in their lives.
Many of us wish to find ourselves in literature, to have our own story reflected in the pages of the novels we read. When we do find such stories, the experience is so exciting and validating that we are willing to forgive any imperfections in the book. It's just so wonderful to discover kindred souls, and to find out that others have been through similar experiences.
Such is the case with Annie on My Mind. It tells the story that many young LBQ (Lesbian, Bisexual, Questioning) women experience, and as such is the kind of "normalizing" of homosexuality that many teenagers can't get elsewhere. The imperfections are minor, but worth noting, particularly in today's irony-saturated media. While many young adult novels feature characters that are smart (and smart-aleck), socially savvy, blasé about sex and drugs, Liza and Annie are almost implausibly innocent and naïve. When the two girls initially meet by chance in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Annie is unselfconsciously singing to a painting in the American Wing. Soon after, they sword fight as imaginary knights in the Arms and Armor room, complete with "chivalrous insults." When the guard admonishes them, Annie explains, "The knights are so-so splendid! I've never seen them before-I got carried away." The guard actually says, "Harrumph!" Who talks like this? Liza almost gets expelled from her private school for not reporting another student who is offering cheap ear piercing at school. Hello, modern life? This kind of preciousness persists throughout the book, as Liza nicknames Annie "Unicorn," the private school students go door to door trying to raise money to save the school, and the total absence of any contemporary teenage culture. These teenagers listen to classical music and linger over Egyptian antiquities. The diversity and energy of New York is silent.
And aside from the girl love, there isn't a whiff of controversy in Annie on My Mind. Both girls are feminine, with long hair. Neither is an athlete, outspoken feminist, or otherwise "butch." We know they make love, but it is not described. No older women "recruit" them, although they accidentally discover that two teachers at Liza's school have been romantically partnered for decades. These two dignified, private women serve as supportive, understanding adults who reassure Liza and Annie that their love for each other is just fine.
But we don't mind these unhip details because the real point of this book is the relationship between Liza and Annie, how they dance around each other for months before the first tentative kiss, how they both fear and long for more than kissing and holding hands, how they learn to trust each other, and finally, how they learn to trust their love in the face of narrow-minded schoolmates, teachers and family.
Rating: 5
Summary: Helps you understand, and so much more... READ IT!
Comment: I started reading this book one night and stayed up until 5am till I was finished! Nothing I read ever made me feel this way, like somebody finally understood. If you feel like nobody understands homosexual relationships, read this book and almost everything you think about may be in there. AOMM finally tells what it FEELS like to be in one of these relationships, and it shows (finally!) that homosexual relationships involve LOVE, something you don't hear much about because of all the "preachiness" of most books on this subject. Annie and Liza are great characters; Liza could be a model for how to cope in an ignorant world. It's not fair that Liza's greatest struggle in this book was being herself! I wish anyone who is ANY sexuality would read this, because it is so true. It is am extreme Eye Opener!!! If everyone was given books like this to read, maybe we would all understand each other a little bit better. It is a beautiful story of how two friends fell in love, nevermind the fact they are both the same sex. This book can be described in this statement: "Don't let ignorance win. Let love."
Rating: 5
Summary: What a phenominal story
Comment: After running search after search on the internet for books containing lesbian characters, I finally found Annie On My Mind. My goal was to find some sort of reassurance that I was not so strange and that there actually are people in the world like me. I figured the best way to do this was to see if books actually existed with lesbians as 'normal' main characters, and not simply obscure sex-starved sub-plot characters. Rather than finding a book with lesbian main characters, however, I found a love story about two girls. I wish now that I could force my parents, and anyone who has a problem with my sexuality, to read it because this book proves that being gay is not a bad thing. It is a great story that definatly comes with a moral: Love, no matter what type, is the only important part of any relationship.
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Title: Dare Truth or Promise by Paula Boock ISBN: 0395971179 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 25 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Girl Walking Backwards by Bett Williams ISBN: 0312194560 Publisher: Griffin Trade Paperback Pub. Date: 15 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Keeping You a Secret: A Novel by Julie Anne Peters ISBN: 0316702757 Publisher: Megan Tingley Pub. Date: 07 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Am I Blue? : Coming Out from the Silence by Marion Dane Bauer, Beck Underwood ISBN: 0064405877 Publisher: HarperTrophy Pub. Date: 30 May, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown ISBN: 055327886X Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 April, 1983 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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