Crush (Orca Soundings)

Hope stays with her sister in New York while her parents are away on a trip. Unable to stand her sister and her sister's husband, Hope ends up working as a live-in nanny for a lesbian couple. Then she finds herself falling for a girl named Nat and has to sort out her feelings.

This is not my favorite GLBTQ book by any stretch of the imagination - for me and for most readers, I think it simplifies things a bit too much. But as a high-low book, it is fabulous.

High-low books are designed for people who have trouble reading - not people who don't like to read - people who are "below reading level," for whatever the reason. This type of book has simple vocabulary and straightforward plots but deals with subjects that teens or adults would be show more more interested in. Just because someone has a low reading level, shouldn't mean they have to be confined to reading kids books. The imprint Orca Soundings specializes in this type of book. show less

A short, simple, everything-is-a-little-too-perfect-and-thus-a-little-eye-roll-inducing coming out/romance tale.

The biggest problem is that somehow this book went through a writing/editing/copy-editing/proofreading/publishing process and no one caught the math that doesn't add up. The main character is 17. She has an older sister who has 10 years on her: 17 + 10 = 27. The parents are celebrating 30 years together. The parents met at age 17 and had their first child (the older sister) while still 17.

So, the older sister should have been 30. Or 29. Not 27.

Everything after that was all very sweet, very perfect, not really 100% believable, but probably a really important story for a gay or questioning teenager in his or her early teens show more to read. The super duper positivity was cloying, but a nice change from some of the shitty things families say and do to kids who come out as gay. show less

I have been surveying YA lesbian literature lately and would like to rate this highly as a young adult lesbian novel but I didn't think it had much substance. It was not very believable (girl just happens to meet future employer who offers her place to stay and happens to be lesbian, then the first girl she meets turns out to be a lesbian and likes her) at all. I liked that she grew up in a commune and describes it positively but it was just too fluffy of a story for me to relate to.

Short enough to read on your commute, Carrie Mac's Crush still manages to flesh out its characters and offer a sweet story of a teenage girl's first lesbian crush and coming-out story during a summer in New York City. I also appreciated the lesbian mentors she found along the way and the unique storyline of Hope being raised by (straight) well-meaning hippie parents in a commune.

This is a "high low" book, a high interest book that is easy to read. It is novella length, so a pretty fast read.

For me, this was pretty short. I borrowed it on a recommendation from the Paly library blog, but it only lasted 45 minutes of my hour and a quarter urgent care wait. Then we were in the exam room for another hour. Dang.

Hope goes to Brooklyn, meets a girl and kisses her. She has fallen into a job as a nanny for well-off lesbians with twins and her parents are quirky but open-minded hippies, so the major drama is her own shock at wanting to kiss a girl. It pretty much stops after a kiss and a trip to Coney Island, and her parents approving of her girlfriend, even though she's headed back to the west coast at the end of the show more summer. I would like to know if Nat is taller than Hope (which matters when you kiss).

I guess I'm happy that teen lesbian romance books exist at all reading levels. I think I'm happier that there is still a reason to for kids to read Annie on my Mind. show less

This was lovely, from the initial scene at the airport to the conclusion - for such a short piece, I was surprised how well Hope's character was developed.

I think this would be an excellent coming-out novel to give to a reluctant teen reader, if they fancy girls or boys - it reads well as a romance, it isn't an after-schooly issue story. Maybe not one for boys, I think, though.

While there is some mention of sex and drug use, nothing is graphic.

a very light, sweet intro to GLBT literature. It's so sweet and really shows the struggle of Hope as she tries to understand what it all means. and how nature it is and how sweet love is.

I will pass this on to my teen