Orphea Proud

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't live up to its potential
Review: I really, *really* wanted to like this book. It was set up like an open mic show, with a teenage girl telling the story of how she came to terms with her sexuality through narrative and poetry. She was black and her lover was white, so there was also a race dynamic in there. I'm interested in sexuality issues and racial issues and young adult novels written in creative ways, so I was super excited to read this.

While I appreciate Wyeth for bringing a Black protagonist into the gay young adult genre, and while I admire *any* writer who is willing to tackle this difficult subject for any age group, I was greatly disappointed in this book. The writing style was wishy-washy, the characters were one-dimensional and the dialogue was strained. I kept on thinking that maybe I was missing something, because I really couldn't believe that this book wasn't living up to its potential. It was melodramatic and meandering in its plot. In terms of young adult novels about discovering a gay identity, I would recommend, "Boy Meets Boy" and "The Realm of Possibility" by David Leviathan, "Annie on my Mind" by Nancy Gardner or "Empress of the World" by Sarah Ryan.