Angie is broken — by her can’t-be-bothered mother, by her high-school tormenters, and by being the only one who thinks her varsity-athlete-turned-war-hero sister is still alive. Hiding under a mountain of junk food hasn’t kept the pain (or the shouts of “crazy mad cow!”) away. Having failed to kill herself — in front of a gym full of kids — she’s back at high school just trying to make it through each day. That is, until the arrival of KC Romance, the kind of girl who doesn’t exist in Dryfalls, Ohio. A girl who is one hundred and ninety-nine percent wow! A girl who never sees her as Fat Angie, and who knows too well that the package doesn’t always match what’s inside. With an offbeat sensibility, mean girls to rival a horror classic, and characters both outrageous and touching, this darkly comic anti-romantic romance will appeal to anyone who likes entertaining and meaningful fiction.
While I don’t believe there is a “precise aesthetics or style” to “queer writing,” I also do not believe it can exist outside identity politics….. “queer” to me is a particularly politicized identity, and one that I don’t identify with personally, although I have no objection to others labeling me as queer. Personally, I identify as a lesbian, which I know in 2013 (almost 2014) is a somewhat old-fashioned term. I identify as a lesbian because I identify strongly as a woman, and “queer” can erase that. And that thought led me to realize I would identify as a queer woman, just not simply as queer….. Moving on to literary endeavors, I think they can suffer from identity politics, but that’s because I’m a commercial writer trying to make a living in a capitalist economy where queerness is marginalized. I don’t write novels that are about queerness, even though my characters are queer (and I do believe my characters would identify that way). I have indeed read novels that would have been better — structurally, plot-wise — if identity politics had been less front-and-center. However, sometimes identity politics is the point of fiction, and I believe it’s disingenuous to criticize that kind of work for doing what it sets out to do.
POPSUGAR has the exclusive first look at Nina LaCour’s new novel – EVERYTHING LEADS TO YOU!
From the interview, Nina LaCour says:
“I wanted to write a love story between two girls that wasn’t about coming to terms with one’s sexuality or coming out. There are so many good books that deal with the complexities of both of those aspects of falling in love, but there aren’t enough YA lesbian romances where the characters are already out and accepting of themselves, where the story is simply about two girls falling in love. I think it’s important that young readers — all readers, really — find representations of all kinds of love in their books.”
Question of Smoke 