I’m queer, nonbinary, and South Asian, and love reading and writing #ownvoices contemporary YA about diverse characters! I love queer love stories, and I also love queer YA that goes beyond the basic coming out narrative. As a 19 year old who just finished their first year at Stanford, I’m also very close to the target age for YA and know what kind of stories my generation needs. As an activist who’s been featured in the New York Times and made Teen Vogue and GLAAD’s 20 Under 20 list, I want to tell a powerful yet accurate story about activism and how being who you are can be revolutionary.
I love contemporary YA from authors like Kacen Callender, Becky Albertalli, Adam Silvera, Mason Deaver, Angie Thomas, and Adiba Jaigirdar.
I’m fairly open!
Kumar Verma is out. Well, out enough.
He doesn’t need the whole world to know he’s queer, and of the people he’s told … well, some of them didn’t react so well. He can still see the disappointment in his traditional Indian parents’ eyes when he came out to them. And plus, he’s a high school junior who doesn’t even have a boyfriend—what’s there to talk about?
Enter Jacob Miller, a transfer from rural Texas, who quickly becomes the star of Kumar’s cross country team. The two become inseparable, and Kumar starts to think he might get his chance at a high school love story after all.
But when Kumar overhears Jacob being blatantly homophobic, his romantic dreams are crushed, along with his sense of safety at school. Kumar has to decide whether to stand up for himself or continue being the normal teenager he’s always been.
For fans of Kacen Callender, Becky Albertalli, and Sandhya Menon, You Don’t Know It Yet is an LGBTQ+ contemporary for a new generation full of romance, heart, and activism.
You know when people say they fell head over heels for someone? Well, I guess my body doesn’t know what an idiom is, because I take it literally.
I’m at a summer practice for the cross country team a week before junior year’s about to start, and it’s like my legs forget how to work. I’m halfway through my laps, doing pretty well for the fact that I’ve been desk-bound all summer studying for the SAT, when I see this incredibly hot guy talking to Coach Shaw. This guy’s the kind of hot where if he were an actor, my best friend Zoya would drag me to a movie theatre just to see him, even if it meant sitting through some horror box-office flop. But where Zoya makes a habit of falling in love instantly with random celebrities, I’ve never had a real crush before. Until now.
And I know I can’t really have a crush on someone just from looking at them, no matter how cute the little curls of his brown hair that fall onto his forehead are, or how sharp his jawline is, or how good a pair of jeans fits his—
And this is the point where I realize I’m on the ground. From the way my left toes scream in pain, I must’ve tripped on my own shoe. And this is silly, but my first thought isn’t to get back up and keep running, or to wonder if I twisted an ankle, or anything like that. All I’m thinking is I really hope he didn’t see how much of an idiot I am.
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