F/F Friday: Annie on My Mind

[osprey_archer]

Nancy Garden’s Annie on My Mind, published in 1982, is one of the earliest YA novels to have a sympathetic portrayal of a lesbian romance, which even ends happily! Without too much egregious sufferings on the parts of the heroines, either! They’ve agreed to meet again after not seeing each other for a few months, and you can tell they’re going to make it work.

I liked it. I didn’t love it: it does that thing I find annoying in romance novels (well, any novel really) where the book tells you that the characters had an interesting conversation - there’s one instance here where Liza says something like “and then Annie and I talked about mortality for a while” - but we don’t get the conversation.

I realize that not everyone wants a good rousing discussion of the inevitability of death getting in the way of their romance, but I super do. I mean, it doesn’t have to be mortality, but if I’m going to get invested in characters then I need to see them talking about something, you know?

But it is extremely sweet. I enjoyed the fun that Liza and Annie have playing goofy imaginative games together, like just after they meet when they pretend to be knights and have a duel in the medieval hall of a museum.

There’s also what amounts to a lesbian reading list in here, which must have been incredibly useful for gay teens in the pre-internet days when it would have been harder to look that up.

Comments

[sovay]

There’s also what amounts to a lesbian reading list in here, which must have been incredibly useful for gay teens in the pre-internet days when it would have been harder to look that up.

What's on it? I have heard of, but not read this novel.

[osprey_archer]

Unfortunately I didn't write it down, so the only one I remember is Patience and Sarah. The others are just mentioned once.