Annie on My Mind offered a bright spot in the ’80s, though it also came with a good deal of melancholy.
These were “problem novels” that had a lot more in common with an after-school special than they did with escapist fun. Very few were being published, and the ones that were had narratives that centered around the tragedy of being queer. This tragi-queer novel set the stage for the awkward first decades of queer YA. It Better Be Worth the Trip, by John Donovan.
It was less than 50 years ago that the first queer YA novel was published: I’ll Get There. While queer-lit history stretches back to the days of Sappho mooning over girls, queer YA is significantly younger.
