Annie on my Mind

Locations
Call Number: Teen Book / Fiction / General / Garden, Nancy
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Fiction / General / Garden, Nancy	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Includes an interview with the author conducted by Kathleen T. Horning.
Originally published: New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982.
Liza tries to put aside her feelings for Annie after the disaster at Foster Academy, but eventually she allows love to triumph over the ignorance of others.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

A teen romance submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on July 23, 2013, 9:47am "Annie on my mind" is one of the first teen lesbian romance novels and it is not a terribly sad book. Liza and Annie fall in love, but as they live in the early 1980s, homophobia abounds. Anyone who thinks homophobia isn't such a bad thing should read this book, as it shows how lesbians can lose their jobs and worse because of others' bigotry.
The book also makes lots of references to 1970s lesbian culture, which might seem goofy to modern readers.
I can't promise a perfect, happy ending, but the book does not end in tragedy, which is about the most one can expect from a lesbian novel of that era.

Outdated but good submitted by ashflowtuff on July 9, 2015, 10:08am This book feels very outdated in 2015, which is great news. I think teens reading it now wouldn't get all that much out of it, but it's a pretty good read for a historical perspective of the progress of gay rights and attitudes.

One of my favorite books submitted by emilyhubbel on August 24, 2016, 9:51pm This is one of my favorite books because it is one of the only lesbian love stories that I have read that ends almost happily. I am grateful to Nancy Garden for writing this amazing book!

Classic submitted by zmclaugh on July 29, 2018, 1:04pm A classic, at this point. An important--and good--book.

A Lesbian Classic submitted by Meginator on August 12, 2020, 6:07pm Content Warning: This book includes homophobic language and depicts a forced outing.
Despite its age, this book accurately captures the essence of first queer love and the many conflicting emotions that come along with this particular type of self-discovery. Nany Garden expertly uses the framing device to give the story added emotional weight and the ending is so gloriously triumphant and ecstatic that its rushed tempo hardly matters. Though a lot of the particulars will feel outdated to many readers, the novel’s emotional core still resonates deeply, capturing many nuances of the closeted queer experience that don’t often appear (or appear somewhat differently) in more recent books. Many queer readers, especially those who came of age before the recent wave of (broad, but not universal) societal acceptance, will connect to this book on a deep level.