Long, Ethan The Death and Life of Benny Brooks: Sort of a Memoir; written and illus. by Ethan Long. Ottaviano/Little, 2023 [288p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780316333122 $16.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780316333320 $9.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 4-6

Shahi, Arya An Impossible Thing to Say. Allida/HarperCollins, 2023 [416p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9780063248359 $19.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780063248373 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 8-10

Warner, Andrea Rise Up and Sing!: Power, Protest, and Activism in Music; illus. by Louise Reimer. Greystone Kids, 2023 [200p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781771648981 $19.95
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* Gr. 7-11

Wild, A.M. Not He or She, I’m Me; illus. by Kah Yangni. Holt, 2023 [32p]
Trade ed. ISBN 9781250818607 $18.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9781250357267 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys   R* 4-7 yrs

Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and 
Connection

Edited by Madeline Dyer

Asexuality and aromanticism are not as well-explored in young adult literature as other identities under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, yet each term conveys a constellation of experiences, feelings, and desires (or lack thereof) that are rife with potential. Dyer offers up an expansive collection of aro/ace possibilities in this queer anthology, with especially strong contributions from the horror, fantasy, mythology, medievalism, and sci-fi genres. Being Ace places aro/ace characters in mythic eras and dystopian futures, dotting them around the globe and the outer rim of space; it even places them among the dead and before gods. Leaning with great gusto into the many genre conventions on display, the collection allows teens to apprehend these complex individual relationalities to asexuality and aromanticism.

Kat Yuen’s unforgettable “How to Love a Sidewinder” and Anju Imura’s lyrical, Japanese mythology inspired “Moonspirited” both examine the intersections of family life and asexuality. In the former, Xiaoying navigates a snake-spitting curse and a conversation about asexuality with her mother, which somehow proves itself more taxing than the serpents erupting from between her teeth. Yuen beautifully intertwines the necessity of protective queer half-truths with visceral metaphor: ball-pythons curling tightly in defense at the presumptive pressure to have children, corn snakes spat quietly to the side as Xiaoying deflects her mother’s insistence on getting in touch with old male friends. Imura’s “Moonspirited,” meanwhile, reads like an intimate memoir in first person, employing creative non-linear storytelling as Sena must protect her identity and her sister from gods that threaten both. Deeply, queerly resistant, the match of fantasy genre and aro/ace identity exploration is throat-scratchingly raw in both tales.

Horror, as ever, provides bloody grist for the authorial mill. S.E. Anderson’s “Smells like Teen Virgin” cannily considers a life of asexuality and sex-repulsion in a Buffy-like world of teenage monster-slaying, where it’s assumed that “virgin” blood calls monsters, and it’s better to get rid of that pesky “virginity” as soon as possible. Artemis (she understands the irony) doesn’t have to just fight against hellhounds and vampires; she also must contend with the Slayer Councilors enforcing a culture of sexual purity/impurity among its initiates, resulting in a toxic culture of sexual coercion and assault. As she carves a gory, singular world outside the confines of “virginity,” Artemis sees things otherwise: “Our value does not conflate with whether or not we slept with someone. We cannot be tarnished. People are not objects.”

Ace relationality to friendship and queer platonic partnership are explored adeptly across multiple tales, most charmingly in Rosiee Thor’s “Well Suited.” This tale portrays the courtly mishaps of the unconventional noblewoman Brindle and nonbinary wizard Fig as they conjure the fake knight “Sir Guy” to allay court pressures placed on Brindle. The fantasy-medievalism genre highlights the absurdity of allonormativity and amatonormatity, with the ostentatious marital and gender role obsessions of courtly life and the high camp of chivalry enacted by a literally hollow suit of armor. The story also serves to underline the cruelties of society’s demands for those on the ace spectrum: “It is all people seem to care about—single or taken, both words somehow a violence,” Brindle reflects. “Perhaps what they are is given, honestly and hopefully, to one another in equal partnership.”

That notion of equitable giving, whether to a friend, a family member, or a partner, is a uniting theme across the anthology, and Dyer expertly delivers on the collection’s premise of creating a variety of colorful, aspirational places to which queer and aroace readers might flock and find community, belonging, and representation. To step into this ace universe is to constantly be in awe at how much variance there is out here among the stars and to thrill at vast, queer unknowns still to be explored.

—Meg Cornell, Reviewer