YA LGBT Books discussion

The new book from Robin Reardon - Waiting for Walker releases Friday June 23. (I thought I had already done a buddy read thread for it, but I can't find it...so if you were signed up, please do so again.)

Micah Jeager's life is a mess. His folks have split, and now he lives with his mother in the manager's unit of a motel. His mother is seeing a medium to communicate with Micah's older brother, killed in Afghanistan. He had to change schools for his junior year, which made him retreat further into himself, hiding behind his camera—and hiding that he's gay.

One sunny day in June, as he's shooting a dead seagull on the shore of Long Island Sound, a mysterious guy appears in a beautiful sailboat. At first, the guy's boat shoes are the image that stays with Micah. But soon it's the person himself, Walker Donnell, who haunts Micah's dreams.

Walker's life looks perfect to Micah. His wealthy parents adore him; he has everything he could want; he's gorgeous and generous; and he falls hard for Micah. But he has a secret: Walker is intersex.

The closer Walker and Micah grow, the more Walker feels a need to be sure of himself in ways he hasn't fully faced before, and now it's his turn to retreat. Micah knows Walker is worth waiting for, so he waits. And waits.


There aren't a lot of YA books with intersex characters in them yet, and Robin's books are always worth a read. I hope some of you will join me.

Cautions -

Readers -
Kaje
Sammy
Mel
E.L.
Mika

Start Date Friday June 14th

Reading end Date not set, discussion will be ongoing, please tag major spoilers.

I'm in on this one!

Thanks, Kaje, for setting this up! I can't wait to find out how readers in this thread react to Waiting for Walker. This was one of my more challenging books to write, with topics like intersex and... well, sharks to deal with! I'm happy to respond to any questions that might crop up.

Hi Robin - thanks for stopping by. I can let you know if author-questions arise.

This was an amazing book. I learned so much (as I always do from Robin Reardon) and encourage everyone to read it. Her characters are so easy to fall in love with.

Michael wrote: "This was an amazing book. I learned so much (as I always do from Robin Reardon) and encourage everyone to read it. Her characters are so easy to fall in love with."
Michael -- Thank you so much for your kind words!

I'm in!!!

I agree, Michael. Robin is an excellent storyteller and WfW is an excellent book.

Michael wrote: "This was an amazing book. I learned so much (as I always do from Robin Reardon) and encourage everyone to read it. Her characters are so easy to fall in love with."

I'm so ready for this!
So great to see the intersex community getting some representation.

Cannot wait to start reading it!

E. L. Croucher
The Butterfly on Fire: Mind, Body and Soul

Hi EL, welcome - are people up for starting this week? It's pretty much unscheduled read and discuss as you go, so we don't have to have an exact time frame, but if we're all starting at a similar time then we'll be more into the discussion. Maybe the 14th (Friday?) to start?

I'm good to go whenever!!

Kaje wrote: "Hi EL, welcome - are people up for starting this week? It's pretty much unscheduled read and discuss as you go, so we don't have to have an exact time frame, but if we're all starting at a similar ..."

Friday works great for me.

Cool - I'll put Friday up there.

Friday is good for me as well! :)

Great :)

Is it too late to join in? This sounds interesting with an intersex character in it.

Nope, not too late. We're just starting today, and anyway, people can join in at any time to these Buddy reads. The only risk of coming late is seeing something about the plot revealed in the discussion.

So welcome, join us :)

So I'm doing a reread now. I like Reardon's young guys - they feel plausible to me.

I'm about halfway through and I just have to say that Micah captured my heart from page 1. Yes, even in his surly, grumpy, defensive posture, he is absolutely adorable. And Walker is the perfect mix of strength and vulnerability... perfectly imperfect and totally genuine.

I like both characters too. I am almost done already. Micah is my favorite. I guess the way the book is written it's harder to get to know Walker. But it makes him kind of a mystery, why he does some things.

I'm kind of glad that the first time I read the book I hadn't read the blurb or info about it (with favorite authors, I tend to do that, to allow the book to unfold the way it was written.) In this case, it meant I didn't know Walker was intersex, even though that's in the book blurb, so I was wondering about past trauma/transgender/intersex/ other issues, as we moved along with Micah getting to know Walker. It's always a decision process what to reveal in a blurb, and having an intersex character does help the story stand out and hopefully might give it sales and appropriate interested readership, so it's appropriate to reveal it.

But I'm wondering if any of you think you experienced the book differently because you knew from the start about Walker?

I knew from the start, having read the blurb, which made me curious about intersex individuals. I really knew nothing going into the book. Having taught Human Sexuality at university in the late 90's, it was never a topic to be discussed. As I read and learned more about Walker, I would look up information on the internet to get a better idea. As I have often commented on Robin's books, it is always a learning experience.

Kaje wrote: "I'm kind of glad that the first time I read the book I hadn't read the blurb or info about it (with favorite authors, I tend to do that, to allow the book to unfold the way it was written.) In this..."

I actually wanted to read the book because Walker is an intersex character. I'm not sure the blurb would have had the same draw for me if that detail was left out. There are so few books with intersex characters and I think it's important to gain some perspective from their point of view... to see how they navigate the perilous teenage years.

Yes, that fact -the absence of good intersex characters in YA - will no doubt be the thing that pulls many readers in to reading the book (For me, Robin is an auto-buy, so I didn't. Like for another book recently by a favorite author where an MC is trans, and I loved having that revealed unexpectedly halfway in.) But you can't have both the appeal to the right readers and the surprise reveal, and expanding readership and knowledge of intersex has to be the bigger goal.

Kaje wrote: "But you can't have both the appeal to the right readers and the surprise reveal, and expanding readership and knowledge of intersex has to be the bigger goal."
You've hit the nail on the head. A surprise reveal of Walker's intersex characteristic would have been great for readers who didn't know and who picked the book up for other reasons. But I conceived the book as a vehicle for carrying information about the condition known as intersex precisely because it's so under-represented and, I think, misunderstood. So, yes, that was indeed "the bigger goal."

Mika wrote: "I like both characters too. I am almost done already. Micah is my favorite. I guess the way the book is written it's harder to get to know Walker. But it makes him kind of a mystery, why he does so..."

I'm almost finished with it, but I agree with you. I think I would have liked to have seen more from Walker's perspective. I felt like the story bifurcated just a bit when Dylan returned and the story derailed a bit for me at this point, but we'll see where it goes from here. It's starting to feel more like Micah's story, more so than Micah's and Walker's story.

I'm finished with the book. I liked it a lot. I thought it was a good way to see an intersex person from the outside. I think I want to read about an intersex character from their point of view. I saw Golden Boy may be good?

I loved Micah - I felt a lot for him. He did some dumb stuff but that made him more real. I didn't really like (view spoiler)[ the brother coming home and some of the Muslim stuff. It kind of took the book away from Walker and made him more minor. But not enough to make the brother like another major character. I mean, it was good but I wanted more Walker. (hide spoiler)]

I would recommend this book to people to read and enjoy and learn something.

I wondered if Robin was still answering questions. I've been reading about intersex people. It sounds like there is a big range of how that works out. Did you pick a particular type of intersex for Walker (like genetics) or try to keep it more general?

Mika wrote: "I wondered if Robin was still answering questions. I've been reading about intersex people. It sounds like there is a big range of how that works out. Did you pick a particular type of intersex for..."
Mika -- What an excellent question! I don't know if you happened to watch the video referred to in Cody Kennedy's foreword. If not, I recommend it. It's only a few minutes long, and you can get a sense of how varied this condition is, how many ways in which it presents (girls with testes, boys without them, etc.). I did chose a particular presentation of the condition for Walker. I considered having it fall within the Kleinfelter Syndrome, but I decided that particular presentation had too many challenges for Micah. So I chose a less extreme aspect for Walker, limiting his treatment to testosterone injections and the micro penis.

Thanks so much for asking! And I hope you'll consider watching the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUDK...

Thanks for adding the link here, Robin.

Thanks for the answer. I will look at the video.

Hello! I also have a question for Robin, if i may?

Ive been lurking here a while, and actually read WfW after being intrigued reading this discussion. I did read it a few weeks ago now tbough, and have read quite a few books since (but obviously WfW made an impression since its still itching at tbe back of my mind lol), so be aware these are my well percolated impressions of my dodgy memory! I'm also going to ramble a little first, so please bear with me for a moment ;-)

So, one of the things i really loved about WfW (other than all the wonderful characters themselves!) was the fact that Walker being intersex was just one strand of many in the plot - it was important, but no more or less so than religion, family dynamics, or culture. I love this the same way i love when authors introduce ace or gay side characters with zero explainations, no big song and dance - it's just one more facet of 'normal' (sorry, i really hate that word but it serves the purpose here) and they treat it that way. So for me, the issues Walker was having were nicely put into context in the same way - yes, he had some things to work out (though again, it is interesting to note that most of his worries were more externally generated than internal, and indeed, as with many issues in the book the older generation had more trouble with acceptance than the younger, which i guess is hopeful?), but they were just one among all that made up the fabric of life, not a singular Big Thing.

On the other hand, while i loved watching Micah grow into a wonderful young man that supported those he loved and helped them forward on a path of acceptance, I'd have loved to have seen in the first person how Walker actually *felt* about his relationship with Micah, and how he grew and changed over the course of the book. But then this may have undermined that wonderful sense of perspective?

So, my question is, was it a deliberate choice to tell Walkers' story from Micah's pov alone? And if so, what was the aim in doing so?

Thanks!!
Yvette (lurker til now, promise to introduce myself properly soon! ;-))

NeverTooManyBooks wrote: "Hello! I also have a question for Robin, if i may?

Ive been lurking here a while, and actually read WfW after being intrigued reading this discussion. I did read it a few weeks ago now tbough, and..."

Yvette --

Oh, I love it when readers give lots of thought to my stories! Thank you for that. And yes, I definitely kept Walker's intersex issue as one of several threads woven throughout the story—an important one for a number of reasons, including how few stories include intersex characters.

To answer your question, I started writing the book with alternating chapters, one from Micah and then one from Walker, because I also thought it would be good to get Walker's perspective.

But relatively quickly, I realized that the characteristics of the condition known as intersex are so complex that I would have had to devote a massive amount of time to understanding the various ways that intersex presents, how each characteristic is treated (or not treated) by the medical community, the myriad of ways that these treatments might affect the person—in short, I didn't trust myself to speak credibly and respectfully from the point of view an intersex person without more intensive research than I had time for. After all, even I knew nothing about intersex before starting this book.

Also, in the research I did, it seemed to me that a major problem intersex people have is how they're perceived by others. So I emphasized Micah's acceptance of Walker, intersex notwithstanding, which I also thought would be validating and perhaps even gratifying for intersex people who read the story.

I hope this explanation gives you a window into my thinking and the decisions I had to make to write a story that would appeal to as broad an audience as possible while still supporting intersex people and shedding some light on their lives.

Thanks for a great question!

Thank you Robin!

That's a really interesting answer. It touches on something else I've often wondered about as an avid reader of lgbt+ fiction - at what point does trying to fictionally represent someone else's reality cross over into becoming disenfranchising/disempowering, or even fetishising to that group of people?

I mean, fiction by its very nature means putting youself in someone else's head, and even irl no two people's experiences and reality of something will be the same. And its great to see so many authors embracing lgbt+ characters and putting forth positive narratives.

But at the same time i also sometimes feel uncomfortable that so much mm romance in particular is written by women. I can think of a lot of really valid reasons for this, and there are a lot of really wonderful books out there, but...

So i guess its not a WfW specific question, but im wondering what drew you to writing predominantly about young gay men, Robin? (I might well add that your books are not among those that make me feel uncomfortable, being very much issue and character driven, rather than romace driven, for lack of a better explaination!!).

Kaje, I'd love your input, too, if you're around?

Where's the line between writing about people different to your own experience, giving minority peoples a voice vs overstepping into changing their narrative by telling it from the outside (in so far as one's more like positive discrimination, and the other is more like an historical narrative written by the victors, if you will?)??

Thanks!!

This is something that is heavily debated, and there is no one single answer. It sometimes gets heated enough to have to be shut down in a YA forum.

My opinion?

If an author is "own voices" for a minority group, their efforts to represent them in the media including books may well have more authenticity, and may be more laudable in the sense of not being exploitative. I do think that's to be strongly supported and encouraged. But that's also only a "may" because I have seen M/M romance by a guy written shoddily, fast, full of stereotypes, and clearly for the money. Is that more okay, because he's gay?

Additionally, no one person's experience represents a whole group. I know gay guys whose books have been criticized by other gay men as "unrealistic" and "not like any real men," in the assumption their male name was a female pen name. I saw a trans reader review a trans author's book as "damaging to the trans community." I know a Puerto Rican author whose pen name sounds Caucasian, and she regularly gets called out for insensitive Hispanic stereotyping, even as she is modeling characters after her own family and experiences.

So I believe we should support own voices from minority authors, whenever possible. I think we can do a lot more to help some of those voices be heard and read - seeking out and reviewing and recommending them. But IMO we should not assume that the fact alone guarantees either impeccable representation, or lack of exploitation, or a good story that will speak to many readers, or lack of conflict within that community. Or that it requires not reading books from other good writers.

I also don't think it is either feasible, or desirable, to demand that no author can write a minority MC of a group to which they do not directly belong. For instance, that would mean almost no double-minority interracial relationships, unless the author happened to be both. No books with a cis gay guy and a trans bi character in them. Does a gay man writing M/M have to leave out the lesbian best friend, because he's not a lesbian, even though he has lesbian best friends? Is he caricaturing or appropriating their experiences?

And what kind of judgment calls are we making then, on the authors personal lives, and not the work. I've seen gay men angry at the cultural appropriation of women writing M/M. I've seen a few of them extend that to gay trans men as being "ex-women" and not having the true cis-male experiences. And does a trans author have to come out, to validate their writing? Do lesbians who write M/M (and there are quite a few) have the authenticity of their LGBTQ status, or the outsidership of not being male?

My only answer to this, as a cis, white, het woman writer, has three parts.

1 - I try to do good research, make sure I write real, emotionally and psychologically plausible people, first and foremost, and for characters who may touch nerves or where I'm not confident, try to find good beta readers. For my trans character, I had 2 trans betas, asked questions of another, (and still had several reviews saying how good the representation was, a couple ambivalent, and one advising all real trans folk to avoid it like the plague.)

2 - I accept that for some readers, cultural appropriation will always be a flashpoint, even if I do my best, even if the book is given away for free. Criticism is part of publishing. I've had someone give one of my M/M books 4+ stars, but then say that after reading and really enjoying it, they found out I was a woman, so they won't read any more of mine, because I can't know about gay lives. That is their right.

3 - if someone who is closer to the character's fictional life than I am, and to whom it deeply matters, critiques my writing as bad representation --> I try to apologize for making them unhappy with my words, listen and try to understand. (That doesn't mean I'll always promise to change it. Depending on what it is, there may be people just as unhappy about the opposite version - I've had gay men email me wanting exact opposite changes in the same book. But I hope I'm able to listen and treat their complaint as valid from their legitimate perspective. And sometimes it should be changed. And sometimes it can't be, as in a print book, and I can only promise to keep the issue in mind in the future.)

*

Some people will argue fiction is fiction, that on the arc from porn through erotica through romance through fiction, there will always be fantasy and wish-fulfillment and unreality. So why worry about it in a minority context? Or why bother to fight it?

And it is not possible for the most vehement reader to control what sells in books - the creepy stalker of Twilight, or the abusive nature of Fifty Shades, may desperately enrage and scare someone for whom rape culture is a deep evil being perpetuated on our young women through popular culture. There will always be that tension between acceptable fantasy in fiction and ... not OK. And no two people will define it the same way.

I do think that if we limit LGBTQ writing to only the authors who are the exact letter of the alphabet, the goal of wider acceptance would take a big hit. The earliest well known gay-MC books were sometimes by gay men (eg. Maurice) but sometimes not (The Persian Boy, The Front Runner.) I know several gay men for whom The Front Runner, or Magic's Pawn, both written by women, were almost life-saving in their depiction of positive gay relationships and characters. I have seen many cis/het female M/M readers inspired to become allies in the real world, even if their allyship is imperfect and based on some unrealism of "romance" genre stories. Personally, I think the more LGBTQ main characters out there, the more the acceptance and expected presence of rainbow characters and relationships in our society spreads.

But I'm obviously speaking from an outside viewpoint. (As the parent of two trans kids, the goal of wide acceptance is high on my list, and I feel like the occasional painfully-off-key ally statement is a small, educatable price for having more allies. But again, an outsider viewpoint no matter how important my kids are to me.)

We have had long discussions on the subject (especially of women writing M/M) and I don't want to open up another general deabte, although I'd enjoy hearing Robin's comment, once.


You can find a previous discussion here: (You will see it got locked to more comments, because at some point, there is no way to achieve consensus and we were going around and around with the same arguments, with some people getting more heated on the topic. But you can read it for interest - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)

I'm so impressed with Kaje's depth of thought and expressive articulation of the philosophy of who can/should write what/why that I won't pretend I can improve on it, although. I will point your attention briefly to Memoirs of a Geisha by the male Arthur Golden. After that, I'll add a few personal responses to the question from NeverTooManyBooks.

One of the best gifts my mother left me was a profound sense of justice, and a powerful resistance to injustice. Another thing she gave me was acceptance of other people's differences from me. Yet another gift was a love of writing.

Like Kaje, I'm a cis, het, white woman. Unlike her, I have no children at all. But living for some years in NYC, I made several gay friends. In 1983, across a table at a sidewalk café, one very dear gay friend told me in hushed tones about the "gay plague." I'd never heard of it before. Neither of us knew then that within ten years it would claim him.

My interest in M/M fiction began years later when my lesbian chiropractor suggested I read The Front Runner (Warren). I hadn't even known that LGBT (as it was then known, to today's LGBTQ) fiction existed as a genre. I was fascinated.

I went on to read Dancer from the Dance (Holleran) and City of Night (Rechy), and I began to see my gay friends in a somewhat different light. When David Levithan published Boy Meets Boy, I heard him interviewed on NPR. So I read that, and then another Levithan, and then a couple of Alex Sanchez's books, and finally got hooked when I read Geography Club and Order of the Poison Oak by Hartinger. I felt as though I had found the niche for my writing, which until then I hadn't taken very seriously.

When I began to take my writing seriously, I discovered that my best writing voice was that of a teenager. So I started writing from the POV of a gay teen. And it worked, for me and for readers. I was further encouraged when most readers assumed I was a gay man because I didn't write about gays "like a woman" (whatever that meant to them).

Then I learned that a third of teen suicides are of gay and questioning kids, and suddenly I had a mission. I never wanted to write true romances (not that there's anything wrong with that). I wanted to write stories to support vulnerable kids and adults, I wanted my boys to be real boys, and I wanted to prove my motto: The only thing wrong with being gay is how some people treat you when they find out.

My chiropractor once asked me if I would ever write a story about lesbians. I replied, "Oh, I don't think I'm a good enough writer for that. I know what it feels like to want a man."

NeverTooManyBooks wrote: "Thank you Robin!

That's a really interesting answer. It touches on something else I've often wondered about as an avid reader of lgbt+ fiction - at what point does trying to fictionally represent..."

I wrote a separate response to the specifics in your questions in a separate post, which (along with Kaje's amazing post) I hope answer some of your questions. But I'd also like to take a step sideways and remove the LGBTQ component from the discussion briefly.

[NOTE: There is a potential spoiler in this post.]

In Waiting for Walker, there is a character with whom—like Walker himself—I have very little in common: an Afghani Muslim woman. While I had subject matter experts for the topics of intersex and sailing, I had none for Afghanistan or Islam; I had to rely on my limited knowledge of Islam and the research I had time to do on it and on Afghanistan. My Author's Note at the back of the book offers an apology in the event anyone finds my representations offensive as well as the promise of a place for them to instruct me (which I provided on my website, here: http://www.robinreardon.com/blog/2017...).

There was one reader who posted a review offering no insight as to whether they felt I had misrepresented anything but that included the suggestion that perhaps I shouldn't have written about those topics. I resist this suggestion powerfully. As I say on my website:

1. My stories are the stories of my characters; they tell me who they are, what their dreams are, how they react to the world around them, and how they live their lives. I go where they tell me to go.
2. Could I refuse to follow the dictates of characters? Yes; but—why? In fact, in light of the hate mongering and bigotry in today's world toward Muslims, I was glad the story line went in the direction it did; it gave me a chance to present Islam and Muslims in a favorable light and, I hope, to represent sensitively some of the challenges they face in trying to become accepted members of Western society. In my opinion, we don't have enough stories like this.
3. I reject the old advice that writers should write only about what they know. While I believe it's good to begin there, what writers know can effectively lead them—and their readers—into fascinating new areas of life where they had not yet ventured. Without imagination, writers cannot write creatively, and they should not limit themselves to what they already know any more than visual artists should do so.

I think this reasoning also plays into my decision to write from the point of view of gay teens.

So far I have not had anyone tell me I've offended or misrepresented anything in Waiting for Walker. I have also never had anyone tell me I misrepresented the reality of being a gay teen—quite the contrary, in fact. That said, I have read several books and stories that I could immediately tell were written by women despite ambiguous or even misleading author names. Should they be writing these stories? That's not for me to say. All I can say is I don't enjoy them.

This is strictly my opinion. If we begin to limit what an author can write it is honestly a form of censorship. Do I like how women are portrayed in ALL literature? No, there are novels out there that quite frankly depict women hideously and horribly. Should I then request that only women wrote about women in the hopes that we are represented fairly? No. I understand the arguments posed by people who may feel marginalized or maligned or fetishized by authors not of their own gender, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. however if we begin to narrow who writes what, how characters are portrayed, how plots unfold we are stomping on the rights of people to express themselves freely. Yes, there is some horrible stuff out there. It is disgusting to see sometimes but if I was given the choice to shut down the rights of others to express themselves versus simply not buying their garbage I'd exercise my rights with my wallet every time. Robin, I loved this novel for many reasons. I expressed that in my review. I will happily buy your work any day of the week! Thank you for the pleasure of reading your stories.

Sammy Goode wrote: "Robin, I loved this novel for many reasons. I expressed that in my review. I will happily buy your work any day of the week! Thank you for the pleasure of reading your stories."

Sammy, thank you so much for your kind words about my work and for supporting free expression in general. You are the best kind of reader!

Wow, what wonderful, passionate responses!

To be clear, I was more asking as authors what draws you to the genre and how you keep your books from becoming, i guess, charactatures, objectifying or fetishising? I wasn't trying to go over the debate itself. But Kaje, i have to say, it was actually wonderful seeing all the arguments I've had in my head spoken in someone else's words, so thanks!! (and that very much wasnt meant sarcastically or passive aggressively, just to be super clear, in case my 'honest and earnest font' isnt working!!).

And Robin, thank you so much for giving me a little insight into why you write what you do (and thank you for doing so, it's a wonderful gift to us all!!).

For my two cents, I was curious from a personal standpoint- i used to write, and would love to get back into it, but i do worry about misrepresenting, especially something that's also a mecical issue like intersex. For me its compounded by the fact that mental differences are a big thing in my family (and actually there's a lot of interesting parallels here too in terms of coming out, discrimination, acceptance, scaremongering and misinformation, etc), and while i love seeing more and more representaions of people with mental differences in fiction and think it's a great thing (Heidi Cullinan's 'Carry the Ocean' is I think a relevant YA friendly example? Its been a while since I read it though, so correct me if I'm wrong!), sometimes there's as much misinformation or well-intentioned artistic licence that can be more harmful than helpful in fiction (when characters 'get better' or 'recover', and issues around mecication, etc etc!).

Which i think brings us full circle really, back to why Robin wrote WfW from Micah's pov? And I guess illustrating the point really well that with some thought and consideration, a caring and talented author can represent a persons journey authentically and in a way that resonates, even if that journey is pretty far from their own experience.

So thank you, you guys inspire me, both by and with your writing!! 😙

Just as an FYI, here's Joyfully Jay's review:

http://joyfullyjay.com/2017/08/review...

Eric wrote: "Just as an FYI, here's Joyfully Jay's review:

http://joyfullyjay.com/2017/08/review..."

Eric -- Thanks for posting that link. I hadn't seen the review yet, and it was very gratifying—helps keep me writing!