Showing titles in Coming of Age

Exhausted by dead-end forays in the gay dating scene, surrounded constantly by friends but deeply lonely in New York City, and drifting into academic abyss, 20-something graduate student Richard has plenty of sources of anxiety. But at the forefront is his crippling writer’s block, which threatens daily to derail his graduate funding and leave Richard poor, directionless, and desperately single. Enter Anne: his brilliant classmate who offers to “help” Richard write his papers in exchange for his company, despite Richard’s fairly obvious sexual orientation.

When sixteen-year-old Shae meets Cam, who is new to their small town in West Virginia, she thinks she has found someone who is everything she has ever wanted in a companion. The two become fast friends, and then more. And when Shae ends up pregnant, Cam begins a different transition—trying on clothes that Shae can no longer fit into and using female pronouns. Shae tries to be fully supportive as Cam becomes the person she wants and needs to be.

Tensions mount as Jim recklessly pursues his interest in Master Wicked. A dark past causes concern for the slave already in Wicked's possession. Is the inexperienced boy biting off more than he can chew, and is he treading onto territory where he's secretly not welcome?

"Aprovéchate de mí" de Xóchitl Lagunes es la novela ganadora del Premio Nacional de Novela Joven José Revueltas 2020. La novela, narrada en primera persona por el protagonista, Santi, cuenta con doce capítulos, todos titulados como canciones de Café Tacuba. Se trata de una novela gay de aprendizaje sobre una primera relación con alguien veinte años mayor. La voz del narrador es verosímil y da cuenta de un mundo, el del extrarradio de la Ciudad de México, con sus propias reglas.

Conrad Aybinder is a boy with a secret; 16 and ready for anything. A chemistry genius, he has spent the summer on an independent-study project with his favorite teacher, Sammy Tampari. Sammy is also Conrad’s first love. But the first day of senior year, the students are informed that Mr. Tampari is dead. Rumors suggest an overdose. How can it be? Drugs are for unhappy people, Conrad is sure, not for people who have fallen in love.

Along the Intracoastal waterways of North Florida, Daniel and Aubrey navigated adolescence with the electric intensity that radiates from young people defined by otherness: Aubrey, a self-identified "Southern cracker", and Daniel, the mixed-race son of Jamaican immigrants. When the news of Aubrey's death reaches Daniel in New York, years after they'd lost contact, he is left to grapple with the legacy of his precious and imperfect love for her. At ease now in his own queerness, he is nonetheless drawn back to the muggy haze of his Palm Coast upbringing.

Running brings together an ensemble of outsiders who get by as runners - hustlers who sell tourists on low-end accommodations for a small commission and a place to stay. Bridey Sullivan, a young American woman who has fled a peculiar and traumatic upbringing in Washington State, takes up with a queer British couple, the poet Milo Rollack and Eton drop-out Jasper Lethe.

Two teenagers become best friends at boarding school, growing ever closer as one falls under the spell of the poetry, personality, and physical beauty of the other: Michael, whose red-silk dressing gown worn for their intimate reads entrances the other boy in ways he is not aware of until after they are expelled. Suddenly Michael confronts him.

It’s 2006, and Casey has thrown herself into NYC’s lesbian and trans activist scene—marriage equality marches, L Word-watching parties, BDSM sex clubs, and trans rights protests. Adam tags along, having fun in places he’d never have expected, but he’s surrounded by lesbians, and it seems like the last thing he’ll find is a girlfriend. That is, until he meets Gillian. Adam is soon hopelessly, desperately in love...only there’s just one small problem. Gillian thinks he’s a trans man.

Boredom gets the best of Jim, and he finds himself accepting an invitation to visit a Master and slave in their home. An awkward dinner and a show of force quickly leads into an unexpected afternoon as Jim receives his first lesson on BDSM.

Dylann Anderson harbors a secret, one he can’t share with his conservative parents or best friend Scott. He’s gay, and once he accepts that, he knows his whole world will be turned upside down. Struggling with questions about his sexuality, Dylann meets Spencer, his musical and romantic match, at a college campus tour. Smitten by the mysterious, handsome tour guide, Dylann feels compelled to get to know him more deeply. The closer Dylann and Spencer become, the harder it is to deny the feelings that continue to grow between the two. Dylann realizes he cannot ignore who he is.

It is 1981. Glasgow is dying and good families must grift to survive. Agnes Bain has always expected more from life. She dreams of greater things: a house with its own front door and a life bought and paid for outright (like her perfect, but false, teeth). But Agnes is abandoned by her philandering husband, and soon she and her three children find themselves trapped in a decimated mining town. As she descends deeper into drink, the children try their best to save her, yet one by one they must abandon her to save themselves. It is her son Shuggie who holds out hope the longest.

The disturbing disappearance of yet another young, red-haired gal from the Irish Travellers’ Caravan site has everyone on edge. Then Shamus Maguire’s 12-year-old sister, Erin, vanishes. While searching for clues to his sister’s disappearance, Shamus meets Lash Boswell, an older man from a Romani caravan. Lash decides to help Shamus, and they set out together to find the truth about the many disappearances.

A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss's Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the 'primitive minds' of our ancestors. Teenage Silvie is living in a remote Northumberland camp as an exercise in experimental archaeology. Her father is an abusive man, obsessed with recreating the discomfort, brutality and harshness of Iron Age life. Behind and ahead of Silvie's narrative is the story of a bog girl, a sacrifice, a woman killed by those closest to her, and as the hot summer builds to a terrifying climax, Silvie and the Bog girl are in ever more terrifying proximity.

Josh Moore lives with his family on the "wrong side" of Hamilton, a gritty industrial city in Southwestern Ontario. As a young boy, Josh plots an escape for a better life far from the steel mills that lined the bay. But fate has other plans and Josh discovers his adult life in Toronto is just as fraught with as many insecurities and missteps as his youth, and he soon learns that no matter how far away he might run, he will never be able to leave his hometown behind.

Serena and Beth are best friends who couldn’t be more different—Beth is an avowed demisexual, who lacks confidence in her career and in her chances at a happy relationship due to her sexual orientation. Serena is a free spirit who oozes with confidence, both in her job and her sexual proclivities. And yet, since the moment they met, they knew they were platonic soulmates. So, when Beth decides that she officially wants to take charge of her sex life and explore the things that scare her the most, Serena is more than happy to help.

Growing up on a homophobic council estate in South Wales with an abusive veteran father made Jamie Taylor’s life intolerable. Her only release was feeding her obsession for rich kid Heather Gardner.

Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all. Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris.

A punto de cumplir 30 años, Simón se traslada a vivir a Nueva York con muchas ilusiones, algunos remilgos y poco dinero. Con su labor de periodista como arma para codearse con las altas esferas y su perfil en Grindr como llave para divertirse con las bajas, Simón conocerá también a sus amigos Carlos y Tomás, cómplices en las mieles del hedonismo y los sinsabores de la emigración. Un camino luminoso de placer y sensibilidad en una ciudad donde el costumbrismo es sinónimo de frenesí y la infinidad de estímulos se parece quizá demasiado a la soledad.

Set in upstate New York, the novel follows these characters as they achieve their aims in lives redolent with loss and hope, humor and sadness, union and alienation. Russell picks up the thread of his critically acclaimed novel The Salt Point 20 years later and tracks the lives of these friends, some of whom not only lost touch with each other, but have also lost their way. Moving, at times shocking, and always memorable, Immaculate Blue points to where the personal and the political come together and shape our lives in unexpected ways.