Book Review: None Of The Above by I.W. Gregorio
by Alexandra von Klan from Inter/Act Youth
None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio (Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins, 2015)
Within the vast realm of young adult novels, I’m an amateur reader. I’ve yet to devour the Hunger Games trilogy and, up until a week ago, I had zero point of reference to John Green (although, after looking him up, I sobbed during the trailer for The Fault is in Our Stars). I don’t claim authority on YA fiction. Even so, I respect the genre’s capacity to explore universal, relatable themes within diverse sub-genres, including the gradually increasing collection of LGBTQ YA fiction. As a feminist, it’s easy to side with YA lit groups calling for more diversity in books by increasing representation of teen protagonists abandoning white, male, straight, able-bodied cliches. Even so, intersex teen protagonists represent an even smaller fraction of the YA canon.
Ilene W. Gregorio’s None of the Above is changing that. And as an intersex woman (and temporary YA reader) that matters to me.
NOTA reveals compelling, “coming of age” story of Krissy, a seventeen year-old high school senior who seems to have it all. As far as popular girl stereotypes go, she fits the bill (almost) completely. Krissy’s the type of person I wanted to be at sixteen; popular, driven, liked by everyone. As homecoming queen and an all-star track athlete, she’s blessed with the three b’s: beauty, brains, and brawn. She’s not your typical high school mean girl, though, exemplified by her intense feelings of regret when she wins the homecoming title over her best friend, Vee. At one point, she even considers surrendering her tiara as a token of her loyalty to Queen Vee. Sam, Krissy’s jock boyfriend, is quick to remind her that she won honorably because she treats people like they exist.
Krissy’s seemingly flawless world is jolted, however, when she learns that she was born intersex–described as having sexual or reproductive anatomical traits that do not neatly fit with social expectations of maleness or femaleness. After winning homecoming queen, Krissy finds herself in the back of a limo with Sam, drinking champagne out of a sprite bottle, and consents to “go all the way” for the first time. A few days later, Krissy nervously visits an ob-gyn to rule out HPV contraction, but leaves with unexpected information about her physiology instead.
The ob-gyn expresses concern Krissy hasn’t started her period yet, a fact Krissy previously justified as a consequence of her intense track training. She also notices two small hernias protruding from Krissy’s lower abdomen, which are later confirmed as Krissy’s internal testes, instead of ovaries. A blood test indicates her chromosomal sex is XY and an ultrasound shows no presence of a uterus. These discoveries ultimately point to Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), an intersex variation estimated to affect 2 to 5 per 100,000 people. CAIS is one of (at least) forty variations of sex anatomy affecting a person’s chromosomal, gonadal, genital, or reproductive development.
Like Krissy, my physiological make-up includes sex traits stereotypically understood as markers of male sex, even though my birth certificate reads the opposite. You can’t tell by looking at me, though, because my chromosomes aren’t visible and, unless we know each other well enough, you probably wouldn’t guess I was born without gonads! I grew up thinking that a woman makes estrogen and gets a monthly period, yet my body doesn’t do either of those things without help from…science!
Intersex traits are not new. As my Inter/Act friends have proclaimed, we are not rare, just invisible. Evidence of intersex traits in humans have been recorded for as long as Western science has sought ways to classify and categorize the sexes. This categorization inevitably resulted in a process of othering intersex bodies because we deviate from socially accepted,scientifically reproduced norms. Enough with the intersexplanations, though….back to the novel!
The ob-gyn initially generalizes Krissy’s biology by stating “I think that you may be what some people call a hermaphrodite.” At this point, I could feel my heart rate increase. Hermaphrodite, an antiquated term once widely used by the medical community, can be stigmatizing and dehumanizing to members of the intersex community. That point of view isn’t universally adopted by intersex activists, some reclaimed hermaphrodite as an empowering identity. The H-word, as Gregorio refers to it, is quite often the only point of reference people have when learning about intersex traits for the first time.
In my personal life, I’ve encountered a handful of folks who don’t know what intersex means, but when I give its definition they are quick to retort, “Oh, you mean hermaphrodites?” For me, this is a teaching moment. Unfortunately, the H-word has been historically used, inside and outside of medical lit., as a derogatory slur. Gregorio quickly corrects the ob-gyn’s characterization of Krissy’s biology by inserting, “…the better term to use is intersex”, into dialogue and, in later chapters, cites another contested term DSD, or Disorder/Difference of Sex Development.
What happens next is a common scenario among people newly diagnosed with CAIS. In a room with Krissy and her father, the doctor explains that Krissy’s otherwise healthy, sex hormone producing testes pose a significant cancer risk. In the novel, readers learn the incidence of cancer from AIS occurs in fewer than one in one hundred people. By comparison, the well known incidence of breast cancer is 1 in 8. Hearing the big C-word, Krissy and her father want to take immediate surgical action. In an attempt to mollify their trepidations, the ob-gyn characterizes the situation as “not technically a medical emergency” and provides a specialists referral to find more answers.
Kudos to Gregorio for weaving this interaction into Krissy’s story. There are reported cases of cancerous gonadal tissue in people with CAIS, but cataloguing a healthy body part as “pre-cancerous” isn’t enough to warrant immediate surgical removal. The unwarranted, irreversible surgical removal of functioning genital or gonadal tissue is at the core of intersex politics today. Personal autonomy over one’s body is often removed from intersex people and informed consent, the permission granted only after all risks and benefits of a medical procedure have been provided, is still being challenged. Unlike Krissy’s diagnosis, readers should also be aware that decisions to normalize and eliminate physically noticeable traces of intersex traits are often made at birth, a time when gender identity hasn’t fully developed, and obtaining informed consent from an infant poses unique challenges.
Without giving away major plot points, Krissy’s decision whether or not to remove her testes will hit home for many intersex readers, their friends, and families. There are many factors involved when considering irreversible surgery, first of which being a person’s access to viable, comprehensive medical care.
In the novel, Krissy has access to specialists who don’t immediately push surgery. She’s provided specialized information pertaining to her individual biology and is recommended to support groups. Dr. Cheng, the specialist overseeing Krissy’s care, endorses sessions with a psychologist to guide successful emotional processing, a service my endocrinologist failed to suggest when I was sixteen.
That being said, there are parts in the book that were triggering. Teenage cruelty, fueled by ignorance, sexism, and prejudice, shows it ugly face one more than one occasion. After Krissy’s “secret” spreads like wildfire within her high school’s gossip channels, she is treated like a pariah, dumped by Sam, and forced off the school track team temporarily due to complaints by competitors that she has an unfair genetic advantage. There’s a precedence for blatant misrepresentations of intersex characters referenced in morsels of popular culture, from Freaks and Geeks to House. While incredibly difficult to stomach, calling out intersex-based bullying and discrimination initiates critical conversations within the minds of young readers. Begging questions like, have I ever made sexist, intersex-phobic jokes? How can I respect and accept my intersex classmates? What’s my invisible privilege as a non-intersex person? For more on the topic, I highly recommend Inter/Act’s informational pamphlet “What We Wish Our Peers Knew”, due to be published later this year.
One of NOTA’s assets is the seamless integration of medical terminology into palatable dialogue a fourteen year-old could easily comprehend. This was not an easy feat and it’s understandable that the nuances of each and every intersex variation out there were left out. For readers unfamiliar with intersex, I emphasize this: there is no universal intersex body or experience. Krissy’s story is representative of a fraction of intersex people with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), as well as intersex people, like me, who become aware of their body’s unique, atypical sexual or reproductive anatomy during adolescence. It’s my opinion that Gregorio illustrates credible, realistic scenarios throughout Krissy’s journey; not only as a character with CAIS, but as a multi-faceted teen trying to navigate the waters of adolescence to adulthood.
Like many readers before me, I transposed elements of my own struggle towards self-acceptance and bodily appreciation on the pages of None of the Above. I, too, questioned my gender identity after being told by an endocrinologist I had male chromosomes and, at times, wondered if I were genetically engineered to be a teenage boy named Alex. Of course, as NOTA emphasizes, gender identity is much more complicated than chromosomes, gonads, or genitals alone.
It’s my sincere hope that NOTA encourages YA authors to explore the limitations of the (constructed) sex binary. I hope more YA novels represent intersex identities within the context of non-science fiction writing, debunking myths and half truths about intersex in the process. I applaud Gregorio’s courageous move to step outside the norms of YA writing, joining the small canon of YA fiction addressing the historically neglected internal struggles of intersex teens. Thanks to NOTA, I might just be an YA fan after all.
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I’ve got a girl in the war
by Marieke Nijkamp
“The objection to fairy stories is that they tell children there are dragons. But children have always known there are dragons. Fairy stories tell children the dragons can be killed.”
With these words, the late, great Terry Pratchett famously misquotes G.K. Chesterton’s Tremendous Trifles. It’s not a misrepresentation of Chesterton’s ideas though. For Chesterton, too, stories were St. Georges, dragonslayers.
But I’d like to think it goes further than that. Stories tell readers dragons come in many ways and many forms—from false friends to overwhelming dystopias. Stories do not just tell readers dragons can be killed—stories tell readers we can be the ones to slay our dragons. We can be heroes. No matter how fierce the dragons, no matter who or what we are.* And in many ways, it is the greatest act of self-discovery, especially when those dragons represent the world we live in.
Quicksilver by R.J. Anderson (Orchard Book, 2013)
After all, self-discovery is an act of discovering who you are, but also an act of discovering your place in the world. Everyone who’s ever felt other knows what it is to know exactly who you are, but still experience that particular loneliness in not knowing quite where or how you fit in.
One of my dragons was growing up in a sexualized, heteronormative, cisnormative world.
Stories did not just give me weapons to fight it, they showed me that beyond that dragon there was another world to live in, with characters that pushed back on those assumptions alongside me, that represented part of me.
The very first of them I remember most fondly. George, from The Famous Five, who hated being called Georgina, who preferred to be seen as a boy. Fox, from Secrets of the Wild Wood, a girl who disguised herself as a boy to fight in a war (of course, much later, there was Alanna too). Annie, from Annie on my Mind, whose love for another girl was achingly perfect, bittersweet and healing.
They all taught me there were many ways to be a girl—and many ways to not be a girl, too. They taught me it was okay to love on the other side of a spectrum.
There would be others, after that. Kaede and Taisin, from Huntress, whose attraction to each other was not only real but started to feel normal. Quicksilver’s Tori, who didn’t feel that attraction at all, and gave me another piece of the puzzle of me. Cameron Post. Simon Spier. Under the Lights’s Van and Brianna. And Kel, always Kel, Protector of the Small, who taught me yet more ways of being a girl.
They gave me the weapons to fight a world that tells me hetero is still the norm, asexuality can be cured by meeting the right person, and gender is a binary.
They gave me the courage to write characters that defy those same norms.
They told me it’s okay to be me, queer, asexual, sometimes fluctuating on the gender spectrum.
And above all, they gave me others like me. Not just characters, but other readers, who read to find that same recognition. Who fight their own monsters. Who stand by me, as I stand by them, so that we can all be dragonslayers together.
* Note to say this does require stories to represent all kinds of heroes. We need diverse books, y’all.
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M.E. Kerr and Deliver Us from Evie
by Sara Zarr
I knew about M.E. Kerr long before I read her. When I was growing up in the seventies and making regular visits to our neighborhood library, there was a beat-up paperback on the spinning rack of “teen fiction” that caught my eye:
Dinky Hockey Shoots Smack by M.E. Kerr (HarperCollins Publishers, 1989)
DINKY HOCKER SHOOTS SMACK!
How could I not notice a title like that? The cover image had the title spray-painted across a brick wall like graffiti. At age nine or ten I made a mental note to myself to read that as soon as I turned thirteen.
Published in 1972, Dinky was M.E. Kerr’s debut, though the woman behind the pseudonym had been writing and publishing for twenty years before that under the names Vin Packer, Add Aldrich, M.J. Meaker and Marijane Meaker. But, for most of my reading life I only knew her and her work through M.E. Kerr. I read about Dinky Hocker (who doesn’t actually shoot smack, only starts a rumor that she does so her social-worker mother will pay attention to her), and sought out more of her books.
By now it was the eighties, and I gobbled up Little, Little and Him She Loves? and Fell. But oh, most of all, I Stay Near You. (That book! That book! But that’s another post for another day.)
In 1994 I was out of college and getting more serious about writing YA myself, and saw Kerr had a new book out–Deliver Us From Evie. And though I can’t say for sure because I read a lot of YA between 1980 and when I found Evie, I’m pretty sure that was the first one that was specifically about a character being gay.
The story is told from the point of view of Parr Burrman, the youngest child in a farming family in Missouri. On his first day as a transfer student to the county high school, a guy says,
“Hey, we know your brother. What’s his name again?”
“Doug Burrman,” I said.
They said, “Not that brother! Your other brother.”
“I only have one brother,” I said.
They said, “What about Evie?”
Then they began to laugh.
From there we get to know Parr, Evie, their parents, and the town. The Burrmans are a warm family with its compass set to farming
Deliver Us From Evie, by M.E. Kerr (HarperCollins Publishers, 1995)
and how to sustain their family business. Everything else is kind of a side issue. Evie is eighteen, likes to share corny jokes with her dad, and of the three kids seems to be the one most likely to stay and help run the family farm. Her mother is always trying to get her to look “more feminine” and encourages the courtship of her by a farmhand, Cord, who has long had his eye on Evie as his perfect future farm wife. And she is kind of perfect–she’s funny, charming, hardworking, and can fix tractors! Good-looking, too. As Parr describes, “You could see the blue of her eyes all the way across a room. I thought she looked a little like Elvis Presley.”
Evie never tries to be anyone she is not, and repeatedly warns her mother that she can’t change her. Still, everyone is comfortably in their denial or ignorance until Evie starts a relationship with the daughter of the guy who basically owns all the banks and businesses in their town. And when Evie tells Parr she’s thinking about leaving the farm, he’s hurt and scared. Cord plies him with a couple of beers and before he knows it, Parr is taking a big part in outing Evie and Patty’s relationship to the town.
I won’t give away any plot details from there, other than to note that one really interesting thing about this book is that Evie’s parents seem to not to mind so much that she’s gay–more that she looks it. It’d be one thing if she was a tomboy who liked to wear men’s clothes and fix tractors but was straight and dating Cord. But to look like a butch lesbian and be one… “Then you’re a stereotype,” Evie’s mom laments to Parr. “You’re what everyone’s always thought one of those women was like.” Throughout the book, we can sense the difference between how Evie is treated once the relationship is outed and how her girlfriend, Patsy, is treated. Patsy wears skirts, has long blonde hair, and is said to be going through “a phase.”
We don’t get inside Evie’s POV but by her behavior we can gather her frustration and loneliness, and the ways she’s trying to live her life honestly without unnecessarily upsetting her parents. Throughout the turmoil they go to church together, have family dinners, argue, joke, run the farm. It’s family that stays in relationship even when everyone is upset. As Parr experiences his own first love and expectations put on him because of his sex (his girlfriend’s father tells him he is solely responsible for her chastity) he has increasing understanding of Evie and her relationship with Patsy.
This book is typical of what I’ve always loved about Kerr’s writing. She writes convincingly about love and families, and manages to handle serious material with a light and compassionate touch, not to mention plenty of humor. The setting of a midwestern farm just before the great flood of 1993 gives the story extra interest, too. Parr, as a farm boy, understands weather and the power that the river has. His sister is part of nature, too, he understands. They can attempt to dam up and levee the situation and control it, but Evie must take her path.
Fun facts about M.E. Kerr:
Under her own name, Marijane Meaker, she wrote a memoir about her two-year romance with author Patricia Highsmith (known mostly for the Ripley books) called Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s. (Out of print, but I found a copy online somewhere. A fun read for anyone fascinated by Highsmith!)
As Vin Packer, she is credited with launching the lesbian pulp fiction genre with 1952’s Spring Fire. In what (I think) was her last Vin Packer novel, Scott Free, she wrote about a transgendered detective.
As Kerr, she’s written a memoir and a book on writing, both aimed at teen audiences. She’s won many, many awards over the years and has been incredibly prolific in her career, and ahead of her time. She is one of the foremothers of YA lit, highly influential on me and many writers I know of my generation. I hope this post inspires you to check out Deliver Us from Evie and all of Kerr’s work, as well as that of Marijane Meaker in her many guises. There’s a nice (but not totally complete) bibliography of her works under her various names at Wikipedia.
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Sara Zarr is the acclaimed author of five novels for young adults, most recently The Lucy Variations, which the New York Times called “an elegant novel.” Her sixth, a collaborative novel with Tara Altebrando, came out December 2013. She’s a National Book Award finalist and two-time Utah Book Award winner. Her books have been variously named to annual best books lists of the American Library Association, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, the Guardian, the International Reading Association, the New York Public Library and Los Angeles Public Library, and have been translated into many languages. In 2010, she served as a judge for the National Book Award. She has written essays and creative nonfiction for Image, Hunger Mountain online, and Response as well as for several anthologies, and has been a regular contributor to Image‘s daily Good Letters blog on faith, life, and culture. As of summer 2013, she’s a member of the faculty of Lesley University’s Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Sara also hosts the This Creative Life podcast. In fall 2014, she received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship. Born in Cleveland and raised in San Francisco, she currently lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband, and online at www.sarazarr.com.
How To Make Your Library a Safe Place for Queer Teens
by Angie Manfredi
Last year, I chose Alex London’s YA dystopian thriller Proxy as my teen book club’s selection. This meant my library would purchase multiple copies, many teens would read it, and then we would Skype with Alex to talk about it. Why did I choose Proxy? Well, partially because it’s superb YA: a well-written, engaging, fast-paced read that asks interesting questions about debt and income inequality. But I also partially chose it because it has a gay, biracial lead character and the author is a gay man. I wanted my teen readers to experience a swashbuckling gay lead, come to root for him and be on his side. I wanted my teen readers, straight and queer, to have a window and a door thanks to Proxy. We all know books can do that. But one of the most important follow-ups is that, for many teens, it will take the help of an adult to find these books. And that’s where librarians can and should step in.
I’ve worked in a public library directly with children and teens for the past eight years. In that time, it’s been my great joy to help many teens find characters like themselves for the first time in fiction and non-fiction. Over the years, teens have found me at the public library to ask for recommendations for queer books in a number of ways but the number one has just been letting my community know that I am an ally. How have I done that? How can YOU, as a librarian, let your patrons and community know that you are an ally and make your library a welcoming place for queer teens? Here’s some tips to get you started.
- Fill your collection with books with queer content. I know, seems simple but it’s the first and best step. You might be worried there’s no audience for these books and they’ll never circulate. But there are teens in your community who need them as their doors and windows. So buy them. It’s really that simple. If you work in a conservative community or a school and are worried about pushback, start with books that are award-winners and positively reviewed: this will give you grounds to justify the purchase. The Stonewall Award and Lambda Literary Award both have children’s and YA award lists and there’s The Rainbow List for a recommended list of reads.
- Integrate queer content with all of your displays and booklists. Are you making a list of great romances? Make sure you include a title with queer content. Are you making a display of amazing summer reads? Add something with a queer character. Making sure that you include queer titles alongside all your recommended reads lets teens who may not ever be brave enough to approach you know that not only do books with queer content exist in your collection but are recommended and appreciated by you, the adult who knows books. This really counts. And it can help straight teens work towards being better allies too as they expand their reading world. This is why I chose Proxy as a book club book – we should work towards seamless and constant integration of queer YA alongside all our programs, displays, and booklists.
- Think about including booklists inside books with queer content. This might not be right for every library, but if you slip in a list of read-alike “If You Like This Book, Try….” inside well known queer YA like books by David Levithan or The Bane Chronicles you have a chance to reach out to patrons who, again, might be uncomfortable talking to an adult for a request like this.
- Try to reach out to your local Gay/Straight Alliance or any queer youth groups. Ask if you can provide outreach and if they’re interested in hearing booktalks. This can be a great way to let adults and teens know that the library is a safe space and has material for them. Look at the GSA Network for more information and resources.
- Make your library a safe space. Much like my library code of conduct does not allow for vulgar language, I do not allow for abusive language of any kind. If I hear teens using any kind of slurs, I step in and let them know that’s not how we speak to each other in the library and, in fact, that we shouldn’t speak to each other that way ANYWHERE. Yeah, that can be awkward, but it can also open a dialogue. I have also created posters for our teen space from ThinkB4YouSpeak, a public education campaign from GLSEN. Both these sites have good information for educators and I recommend librarians and teachers read them. GLSEN even has a Safe Space kit, including a sticker you can print out to show your library/office is a safe space.
When my teen readers heard Alex London talk about how he wrote Proxy because he wanted to see a hero like himself, the kind of hero he wanted to be – one who was dashing and had adventures and was also gay, I could see their eyes light up. I knew there were queer kids and straight kids in that room and I knew in that moment doors and windows were opening wide and, yeah, lives were being changed. As librarians, we can help make that change.
It was something as simple as a story but it was so much more.
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Angie Manfredi is the Head of Youth Services at the Los Alamos County Library System in Los Alamos, NM. She adores working with children and teens of all ages and still can’t believe they pay her to be a librarian. She is currently serving on the Stonewall Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award Committee. You can read more of her writing at Fat Girl, Reading or find her on Twitter @misskubelik. (She wrote this post about talking to your librarian about the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign.)
Are They LGBTQIA? Let Your Characters Tell You
by Karen Sandler
As a cis white author who’s inching ever closer to old lady status, I experienced a couple fortunate circumstances in my youth that shaped me as a writer. First, when I transferred to a new high school in 1970, the circle of friends who drew me in were largely gay, lesbian, and transgender. Second, when I started writing more seriously in my early 20s, several of the members of my critique group—which included luminaries Katherine Forrest and Montserrat Fontes—were gay or lesbian.
I don’t mention this to brag that I’m “all that and more” or to burnish my ally credentials. I point it out and describe it as fortunate because my high school friends and critique group members diversified the tapestry of my experience and gave me a wider palette to draw on as an author. Not to mention they were great friends who enriched my life, accepting me when I felt like such an outcast.
My process as a writer is very left brain when I’m first getting started. I’m a plotter, not a pantser during the initial planning stages. I write out detailed outlines for my characters, including not just physical qualities, but also intricate backstories that have made them the person that they are at the start of the story.
I have yet to write a “gay character” during that initial process. Why not? Because I don’t know them that well. Most people don’t walk up to total strangers and blurt out, “So, are you gay, or straight?” I have to get to know my characters as I write my book just as I become acquainted with an actual person in real life.
Tankborn by Karen Sandler (Tu Books, 2011)
When I wrote Tankborn, the first book of the young adult Tankborn Trilogy, I mentioned Risa Mandoza for the first time in the epilogue. At that point, all I knew about Risa was that she was an older woman and a member of the underground Kinship movement. Also, my main character, Kayla, would be working with her in the future.
It wasn’t until Awakening, the second book of the trilogy, that Risa became a more prominent character and I got a chance to get to know her. I didn’t start the book thinking, Well, I need someone LGBT in this book, so I’ll make Risa a lesbian. It was really that I got to know her. Her character became more real and fully formed. Somewhere along the way, I realized she was married to Kiyomi, another woman. It was as key an aspect of Risa’s character as her rough edges and long, salt-and-pepper hair. (Side note—Risa’s and Kiyomi’s relationship also got me uninvited from a scheduled school visit back in 2013.)
In the same way, I knew next to nothing about Junjie, the best friend of my main character, Devak, when I first introduced him in Tankborn. Junjie never appeared “on scene” in that first book. He was only mentioned in the narrative and once or twice in dialogue when I was in Devak’s point-of-view. I knew that Junjie was a life-long friend of Devak’s, but he didn’t have a part to play in Tankborn.
Awakening by Karen Sandler (Tu Books, 2013)
Even in Awakening, I didn’t start out knowing much more about Junjie than I had in Tankborn. He was far more important in book 2, not only “on scene” in much of it, but also a POV character who had a key role in moving the story forward.
Also featured in Awakening is a mysterious boy who is Junjie’s connection to the rather violent FHE movement. At first that shadowy boy was meant to be sort of a throw-away bit character. Then maybe half-way through the writing of the book, it popped into my mind, Oh. Junjie has a little crush on this boy.
That was as far as it went in Awakening. I remember mentioning something to my editor that Junjie might be gay, and she was surprised because I’d been so ambiguous about his character’s sexuality. But the natural progression was leading me there.
Then came Rebellion, the third book. Again, Junjie is an important secondary character, still true-blue friend to Devak. They are searching for Kayla, not knowing if she is alive or dead. One way or another, Devak wants to bring her home. And one person might know where she is—the mysterious boy from Awakening.
Eventually Devak and Junjie find the boy, Usi. And Junjie’s tiny crush that I’d barely hinted at in Awakening blossoms into real love between him and Usi. They’re inseparable from the time they meet and both become crucial to the story.
I could have ignored those writer’s instincts that clued me in to Risa’s and Junjie’s sexual orientation and never woven those aspects into the Tankborn Trilogy. But once that intuition kicks in, we have to listen. Those characters are who they are, just as much as a real-life person is. We might have created them and set them in motion, but just like a child we’ve raised, they will become who they are meant to be, all on their own.