F/F Friday: Kissing Kate

[osprey_archer]

Lauren Myracle’s Kissing Kate was one of those lesbian books in the early aughties that I was too embarrassed to check out at the time (the other one that stands out in my mind is Empress of the World, although there may well have been others). It’s too bad, though, because I finally read the book this week, and it’s really good.

When the book begins, long-time friends Lissa and Kate are not speaking. The exact reasons why unfold slowly, but the title tells us the basics: the girls kissed each other, and neither of them know how to deal with it.



The book is a coming of age novel rather than a romance, because it doesn’t end with Kate & Lissa getting together. Although the girls try spasmodically to be friends again, in the end Kate’s inability to accept her own sexuality makes it impossible: she can’t be around Lissa without thinking about the kiss, and she can’t think about the kiss without blaming Lissa, because if she didn’t blame Lissa she would have to accept her own feelings.

But I would still consider it a happy ending, because Lissa not only accepts herself, but also becomes more accepting of others’ eccentricities and finds a new best friend in Ariel, a New Age-y girl she earlier dismissed as too weird to be worth her while.

Ariel is straight, so there’s no chance of romance there, but I actually kind of liked that the book didn’t rush to pair Lissa up before the end. It makes sense that she would need time to grieve for her lost friendship (and the lost possibility of more) with Kate, and that she might need more time to grow comfortable with her new knowledge about her sexuality before she dives into romance.

Comments

[kore]

Aww, that sounds sweet, and reminds me of Deborah Hautzig's Dollface (1978) except in that the girls remain friends, and the narrator's sexuality is more ambiguous although she seems open the possibility of queerness.

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that sounds right up my alley. It's interested because in the early 2000s I definitely had the impression that Kissing Kate et al were the First Queer Teen Books Ever, and now I'm discovering that there were actually a small but significant smattering in the late 70s & early 80s.

[kore]

Yes! Altho sometimes the queerness is not much more than "attracted to wild new girl in town," or "best friends make out, are confused," or "one friend realizes she is queer." But it's there. Just a little.