We Need to Talk About Vaginas

We Need to Talk About Vaginas : an important book about vulvas, periods, puberty, and sex!  by Dr. Allison K. Rogers

St. Martin’s Press  9781684492848

A gynecologist explains, examines, and answers questions about female bodies and the changes experienced in the transition from childhood to adulthood.  Topics (in addition to those called out in the title) include: public hair, ovaries, cramps, hymens, masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, gender identity, and the history of flying vaginas!  The narration is honest and straightforward, using correct medical vocabulary. The illustrations show a variety of differently colored and shaped bodies.  Recommended for age 8 and up.

Birth control, diversity, gender diversity, graphic novel, masturbation, mental health, non-fiction, on-page sex,  parents, pregnancy, rainbow+, sexual assault, teachers

Plan A

 

Plan A by Deb Caletti

Labyrinth Road, 9780593485545

16-year old Ivy is strong, independent, opinionated…and pregnant.  She has plans and hopes and dreams for her future, and that future does not involve a child originating from sexual assault.  

Unfortunately for Ivy, she lives in contemporary Texas, which has some of the most restrictive women’s health laws in the country.  Ivy doesn’t realize that she is pregnant until she has passed the 6-week mark, after which an abortion is illegal in her home state.  Fortunately for Ivy, she is not alone:  her mother, grandmother, and a host of other women (and men) are willing to prioritize her choices, and so begins what Ivy and her adorable boyfriend Lorenzo call their “abortion road trip love story.”  

This book is serious and funny, timeless and timely.  It will absolutely be banned and challenged, and should absolutely be available for any reader who wants it–because these choices are important, and stories about these choices are possibly even more important. Highly recommended for ages 14 to adult.

Abortion, birth control, bullying, cussing, diversity, friendship, high school, kissing, parents, pregnancy, rainbow+, religion, sexual assault (on-page), Star Trek sex

Nigeria Jones

Nigeria Jones by Ibi Zoboi
Harper Collins Publishers, 9780062888846

16-year-old Nigeria Jones was raised to be a warrior princess, fight against White Supremacy and support the Movement headed by her father, the famous Black separatist Kofi Sankofa. Without her mom’s support, Nigeria questions her own place in her father’s vision, especially when she begins to explore the world on her own and discovers that people don’t always sort into tidy categories.

The narration is instantly engaging, and although the astute reader will predict some of her revelations, Nigeria’s journey is a compelling page-turner. The on-page sex scene is poetic rather than specific. Recommended for ages 12 to adult.

Abortion, bullying, cussing (mild), death, diversity, friendship, gay friends, high school, homophobia, kissing, mental health, on-page sex, parents, pregnancy, racism, teachers.

Unexpecting

 

Unexpecting by Jen Bailey

 

Ben Morrison is definitely gay.  He’s also 16 years old, a robotics enthusiast…and about to be a dad.

 

Wait, what?

 

Maxie’s pregnancy is the result of an experiment at science camp, and she just wishes it was all over, but Ben wants to raise the child himself.  With support from his mom, his new stepdad and his longtime crush, Ben puts together a plan to prepare for fatherhood…but even before the baby is born, Ben is exhausted and questioning his choices.

 

This sweet story has many characters to love:  Ben’s best friends, the guy he’s crushed on for years, his mom and his (adorable) stepdad, and even his new boss.  There are a few less-lovable characters (looking at you, Maxie’s parents) but they get very little time on the page.  The end is predictable but still adorable.

 

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

 

Cussing (mild), diversity, friendship, kissing, high school, gay friends, straight friends, off-page intimacy, parents, pregnancy, rainbow+, STEM, neurodivergence.

Girl Mans Up

Girl Mans Up  by M-E Girard

Pen doesn't want to be a boy.  And she isn't.  So why does everybody have these weird ideas about her?

Pen likes to dress in baggy jeans and her brother Jimmy's t-shirts.  She doesn't want to be her mom's "princesa."  She doesn't want to get married to some guy and go to nursing school. She wants to hang out with her buddies--guys like Colby, who plays first-person shooter video games almost as well as Pen, and who totally has her back.  

Or...does he?

Readers will see that Colby lacks the loyalty and respect Pen craves long before Pen catches on.  But when Colby tries to sexually assault her, even Pen can see what a ratbag her "friend" really is.  At that point, Pen has to make some changes.  And none of the choices she might make will be easy.

This book features some fabulous allies, including an older brother and (to Pen's surprise) a couple of girls.  

Three cheers for a strong gender-fluid protagonist, a teen romance that does not fly apart at the seams by the end of the book, and a sibling who is friend, brother, and parent to Pen.

Recommended for readers ages 12 and up.

The Smell of Other People's Houses

The Smell of Other People's Houses  by Bonnie Sue Hitchcock

Before Alaska became a state, Ruth has a loving family.  When her father is killed in an accident, she goes to live with her very harsh and disapproving grandmother.  This story brings in four teens as voices in various chapters who all make difficult choices.  

Harsh is the life that these teens live.  Courage is their choice, and they make it with intensity.  One of the teens in an Inupiat Indian living with an Athabascan family.  All of the stories wrap around and into each other as the characters interact.  This slight book describes a time and population rarely seen in teen literature.

And the smells!  Rich writing brings the odors and sounds into your senses.

Recommended 12 up

Walk on Earth a Stranger

Walk on Earth a Stranger  by Rae Carson

For her own safety, and to elude capture by the wicked uncle she is sure murdered her parents back at their little homestead cabin in Georgia, Leah disguises herself as a boy and flees West, to California and the gold recently discovered there.

While travelling, Lee must not only conceal her true identity, but also her most dire secret:  she can sense the presence of gold.  Small nuggets, deeply buried veins, gold buttons or rings, and even gold dust caught under a fingernail call to Lee like a sweet song.  She knows that some would call this talent "witchcraft."  She also knows that in California, her power might make her very, very rich.

But first, she has to get there.

With rich, round characters and plenty of fascinating little historical details, Lee's engrossing journey from Georgia to California kept me turning pages.

Some blood, some violence, and some cussing but no sex...so why is this book presented on the SEX IN THE LIBRARY blog?

I'm so happy you've asked!

The author includes a small group of  men in the wagon train group headed west.  Without much detail provided, it is clear to the astute reader (and made more clear by the author's note at the end of the story) that these are, in fact, gay men.  It is not a huge plot point, and that's the beauty of it:  at last, teen literature has matured to the point where a character's sexual preferences are no longer the Central Issue of a book.  In fact, the young men's status as "confirmed bachelors" is less of a conflict point than the status of another character who is Presbyterian instead of Methodist.  These details are important, but they are not The Problem.

The story clearly leads to a sequel, but stands alone with a satisfying point of pause while we wait, patiently (or not) for the next volume.

Orbiting Jupiter

Orbiting Jupiter  by Gary D. Schmidt
Jack is twelve years old when his foster brother comes to live with the family on their little farm in Maine.  Joseph Brook is fourteen years old, recently released from a facility called Stone Mountain.  And he has a daughter named Jupiter, whom he loves deeply although he has never seen her.

The story is slowly revealed, in tiny, agonizing bits.  Jack narrates with clear eyes and a farm boy's practicality:  that you can tell all you need to know about someone from the way cows are around him.  That leaving a guy to get beat up while you go find a teacher is not okay.  And that being family means you've got somebody's back.

Just when things are looking brighter for Joseph, the end of the book comes crashing down.

What this book is: sweet. compelling. impossible to ignore.
What this book is not: easy.

Highly recommended for readers ages 14 to adult.

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go : a novel of Haiti  by Laura Rose Wagner

Cousins Nadine and Magdalie have lived together as sisters their whole lives, raised by Manman in the Haitian city of Port-au-Prince.  But when the big earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, everything changed.  Manman was killed in the quake, crushed by the roof of their home.  Schools are closed.  People are afraid to sleep under a roof at night.  The girls go to live with an uncle in a tent encampment, and everyone tries (often unsuccessfully) to make life seem normal again.

When Nadine's estranged father sends for her to come to Florida, Magdalie clings to the hope that she will soon escape Port-au-Prince as well.  Gradually, however, Magdalie understands that her future must be in Haiti, and that her hope for a better life must mean a hope for a clean, prosperous Haiti.

Honest, grim, and horrible at times, this coming-of-age story is nonetheless infused with points of brightness, and clearly shows the circumstances still facing Haitians today, long after the earthquake.

Highly recommended for discussion.  

The Truth About Alice

The Truth about Alice    by Jennifer Mathiew                                

978-1-59643-909-2     Roaring Press, 2014           $16.99                   199p

Alice lives in a small town in Texas.  Rumor has it that she slept with two boys at a party.  That rumor spreads like…well…the internet at warp speed. Rumor also has it that she sent sexually explicit texts to one of those boys later that ended in his death- reading texts while driving.  Rumor went on to say that she had an abortion.  

All rumors.  All spread like wildfire.  She is dumped by her best friend.  She has her own “slut stall” in the bathroom where sharpies spread more rumors.

This story is told in alternating chapters, by all the characters except Alice.  

She does talk in the final chapter.  

Perhaps a cross between Mean Girls and Gossip Girls, this is about the same ilk.  Will you read this as a gossip to find out what is true or not, but still tuned in?  Will you read this sympathetically having been there or known someone who was there?

For readers 16 and up.

Say What You Will

Say What You Will  by Cammie McGovern

Amy is a high school senior with spastic cerebral palsy.  She doesn't walk well without assistance, she talks by using a voice simulating computer, and she has no real friends.

Matthew is a high school senior who has known Amy (kind of) since elementary school.  Matthew is obsessive-compulsive, and his need to tap lockers, count ceiling tiles, wash his hands and avoid the blue squares on the hallway floors is getting worse.  He doesn't have any real friends either.

When Matthew is hired as a peer helper for Amy, the two teens begin talking to each other as they have never communicated with anyone else before.  Maybe they've even fallen in love, despite their catastrophic prom date.

And then...things go wrong.

Beautifully written, here is a compassionate story of two teens who don't fit in. And yes, there is sex in this book -- tactful, and off-page, but there is definitely sex.

Highly recommended for readers who liked the passion and  intelligent banter between characters in The Fault In Our Stars, with the good news:  nobody dies in this book.

Pretty Girl 13

Pretty Girl-13  by Liz Coley

Angie is introduced to us in a backflash prologue: at thirteen she is at Girl Scout camp.  When she is alone in the woods peeing behind a bush, she is accosted and then kidnapped by a male adult.

Now, flash forward to Angie arriving home, just walking up to the door of her house, not knowing how she escaped.  Homecoming has a few problems however:  she has actually been three years, and although Angie has total amnesia of her time away, she has the telltale marks of manacles on her wrists and feet.  

While she is actually sixteen, Angie still feels like she should be in eighth grade, and wants to learn what she has missed.  After all, she still feels thirteen.

Angie’s parents take her to a therapist, who through hypnosis, discovers multiple personalities who have taken over her psyche in an effort to allow Angie to detach from the trauma of the situation a thirteen-year-old could not handle.  The alternate personality completely takes over, “tucking” Angie into a corner of her mind.  However, inside Angie there are five distinct personalities. 

This is a dark, dangerous path for both Angie and the reader.  It is pieced out slowly since it is not easily read by an adult, and will be even more difficult for a high school student.  And yet, as readers cheer for Angie and just want her to be a “normal” student in school, it's obvious that this will never happen.  

Just what can we hope for?  This book will captivate you and touch you in the way that few books touch on your emotions.  Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl did that in a different, chilling, way.

Coley talks about new ways to treat Dissociative Identity Disorder, some of which are not really used yet.The Afterward is just as interesting as the book, with more information on the disorder and famous people who have suffered - and recovered.  

For mature readers, 14 and up.

Child abuse, cussing, death, grieving, kissing, pregnancy, rape, sexual situations, violence

How to Love

How to Love  by Katie Cotugno

We first meet Serena as a teen mom.  Her daughter, almost two years old, is the result of sex with Sawyer, whom Reena has loved all her life.  Sawyer disappeared over two years ago, not knowing he had fathered a child.  And at the beginning of the story, Sawyer reappears.

From there the story is told in alternate chapters of “Before,” and “After,” from Reena’s point of view.   Having spent an emotional childhood, teen life, and even pregnancy tied with Sawyer, Reena is determined not to fall back into that life.  And of course she can’t resist.  Sawyer wants her back, with his baby.  The problem seems to be that while they were busy having sex, they forgot to find out if they even liked the other person! 

There are other complications:  Reena and Sawyer’s families own a restaurant together, and both of them work there still. Both families are strict Catholics- creating obvious conflicts for a pregnant teen daughter.  Reena’s father has mostly avoided this fact, but also avoided the fact that Reena has worked hard to go to college, and is doing a really good job with her daughter.  Reena has had to give up her dreams.  Is she grasping at a returned Sawyer as part of rekindling those dreams?

The plot is slow and the angst is palpable.           

A side note: the family is obviously Hispanic family, but nowhere does the narrative announce this with a neon sign.  Nicely done.

Recommended 14 up

Cussing, death, gay friends, grieving, kissing, pregnancy, sexual situations, star-trek sex.

100 Questions You'd Never Ask Your Parents

100 Questions You'd Never Ask Your Parents : straight answers to teens' questions about sex, sexuality and health  by Elizabeth Henderson & Nancy Armstrong, MD

When I have sex for the first time, will people be able to tell?
How old do I have to be to buy condoms?
What is the best birth control?
Does alcohol really kill brain cells?

These, and 96 other common questions are answered in simple, straightforward language. The questions are arranged in a random fashion (perhaps from most-frequently to less-frequently asked?), and the answers are succinct and factual--most Q/A entries are dealt with on a single page, with no fancy color formatting, no sidebars and no illustrations of any kind.

Most questions are related to sex and sexuality, but topics also include drug and alcohol use, suicidal thoughts, and friendships.  The "hot" topics of homosexuality, birth control (including abstinence, condom use and pills), and pregnancy are each addressed several times, but the topic of abortion remains untouched by this book.  Not all the responses are complete--it's notable that Planned Parenthood is not mentioned anywhere in the text or index, despite that agency's importance in the field of teen sexual health issues nationwide.

Index and glossary of terms are included. A list of additional resources, books, websites and governmental agencies would have been helpful, but was not included.

Keeping the Castle

Keeping the Castle  by Patrice Kindl

17-year-old Althea needs to marry for money. 

She knows that the fate of her noble-but-impoverished family as well as the fate of the family castle depends on her ability to make a successful--i.e. a wealthy--marriage match.  At first, Althea is willing to marry anybody who is rich enough to pay the bills and repair the dilapadated ancestral home, but gradually she realizes that she would prefer to marry someone who is not only rich, but also well-bred, well-educated, well-mannered, good-looking, and smart enough to recognize those virtues in Althea herself.

Fans of Jane Austen's literary world will adore Althea and her eccentric family, and astute readers will immediately identify the character she should marry, even when Althea seems impossibly blind to his fine qualities.  This quick, charming book can also be a stepping stone to the world of Regency romance made so popular by Downton Abbey.

No sex or cussing (heavens forbid!); the sweet and funny romances in this story will mostly appeal to gently reared female readers ages 12 to adult. 

The Brides of Rollrock Island

The Brides of Rollrock Island  by Margo Lanagan

Misskaella Prout is ugly and outcast, unloved by her family, mocked by the women and rejected by the men of Rollrock Island. 

Though she has a magical talent to pull selkies from out of their seal-skins and into human shape, she does not stop with merely conjuring a lover for herself.  Instead, Misskaella also creates a deep and complex revenge against the island people by providing--for a price--a beautiful seal-wife for each man on the island.  Enchanted by the fey sea-wives, the men abandon their human families, mortgage their wealth, and deny that their lives are anything but wonderful.  The selkie women are helpless without their seal-skins...but when their sons steal back the coats, life on the island changes dramatically once again.

A complex and beautifully written story of hatred, love, magic, revenge, and eventually, redemption.  No cussing, minimal violence, and some on-page sexual situations between humans and selkies in (mostly) human form.  Highly recommended, ages 14 to adult.

Carter's Unfocused One-Track Mind

Carter’s Unfocused One-Track Mind by Brent Crawford

Will Carter is now a sophomore, buffing out through football, thinking about a theater school in New York City, and still hoping for sex with Abby.  Will took Amber to the Homecoming Dance, to make Abby jealous; however, Amber ditched Will, hooked up with Rusty, and became pregnant.  

Sophomore boys are mystified with Amber’s pregnancy.  Will says, “We’re just not cool enough to deal with the …baby situation, I think.  We’re just like really focused on sex, you know?  Like all the time… “   Will and his “boys” also join what seems like an unsupervised party every weekend, create a “fight club” with one pair of gloves (and one pair of ski gloves), go camping and start a major fire, and generally have more adventures than any ten average fifteen year olds.  

Realistic?  Not a chance.  

Laugh-out-loud funny?  You will be laughing so hard you will need to stop reading to wipe away the tears.  

Even after you put the book down, you will be visualizing a bathroom floor full of pee, feces, vomit, and Will slipping across the bathroom floor, getting puke even in his ear. Third in the series. 

Ages 14 and up;

cussing, kissing, pregnancy, Star Trek Sex. 

Hooked

Hooked  by Catherine Greenman

Thea considers herself savvy and spunky, but she throws all that away when she starts dating Will, who "hooks" her with his good looks and charm.  Their love is strong, the sex is fantastic...and then, Thea gets pregnant.  The early-abortion plan (endorsed by parents, friends, and Will) is abandoned when Thea discovers that she loves her unborn child too much for abortion or adoption.  Plan #2 centers on everyone supporting Thea and baby Ian (and Will too), physically, emotionally and financially.  There is a bit of squeaking about this, but eventually, everyone falls in line because they love Thea and the baby is adorable.   Thea's plans for the future include spending more time with her formerly-estranged dad, making bundles of money by designing the latest crochet fashion merchendise, and eventually getting back together with Will.

Realistic?  Uh, no. 

Maybe that's how folks do things in The Big City, but in my small town, parents of unwed parents don't hand over $10,000 (each!) as starter money on top of the rent-controlled apartment they finance for the teens and little Ian.  Thea's narrative voice rescues this story from the round file:  she is spunky, and she stands up for the ideas and the people she values, including herself. 

Not a first purchase, but don't overlook this title if budgets can support it.  There is on-page (but not graphic) sex, minor cussing, and some underage drinking, but nowhere near as gratuitous as Gossip Girl and that ilk.  Ages 14 and up.

The Pregnancy Project

The Pregnancy Project : a memoir  by Gaby Rodriguez with Jenna Glatzer

Gaby Rodreguez' mother got pregnant for the first time when she was 14 years old.  Her older sisters were pregnant in high school; her older brothers were fathers before they turned 21 years old.  Although she was a straight-A student and a member of the leadership class at school, and often lectured her peers about the need for safe sex, Gaby was often told by family, friends, teachers, and others that she would very likely end up as a teen mother.  In 2011, 18-year-old Gaby decided to study what being a pregnant teen was really like--by pretending to be pregnant, and taking notes on how other people responded to her. 

This book is an excellent quick-read for students and adults interested in the topic.  Interspersed with the narration are plenty of statistics about teens, pregnancy, and education, and the description of life for teens Toppenish, WA is spot-on. Recommended.