Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

8.2

Storyline

8.0/10

Queer Representation

8.0/10

Writing

8.5/10

Pros

• Some semblance of queer community
• Protagonists are not tortured because of their sexuality
• Positive/Happy portrayal of queerness

Cons

• Homophobia as major plot point
• Characters feel some sense of shame
• Fear of being Outed

Title: Annie on My Mind

Author: Nancy Garden

Original Publication Date: July 1982

Original Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux

Queer Representation: 2 teenage lesbian protagonists, 2 secondary lesbian adults

Page Length: 234

One of the first QYA novels to offer up the revolutionary idea that you don’t have to make queer characters suffer to have a good novel.

Memorable Quote: “Don’t punish yourselves for people’s ignorant reactions to what we all are. Don’t let ignorance win. Let love.”

REVIEW:

When Liza Winthrop first spots Annie Kenyon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she is immediately drawn to the singing girl surrounded by quiet people. The two may have come from different backgrounds — Liza comes from a upper-class family and attends a private school while Annie comes from a working family and attends a low-income public school — but something draws them together. Perhaps it is because Annie brings an element of the whimsical into Liza’s highly goal-oriented life. Somewhere between the time the girls pretend to be knights and sword fight in the MET and all of the time spent getting to know each other, the two girls fall in love.

But when an incident involving the girls threatens Liza’s good standing in school and her chances of getting into MIT, the two girls must consider the potential costs of embracing their relationship and doing so publicly. The novel opens with Liza attempting to write a letter to Annie, and it is apparent that, with both of them now off to college, they have have not spoken in some time. Liza reflects on their time together and what their relationship means to her, but readers must wait until the very last page to learn of the two girls’ fate.

Garden was among the first queer young adult writers to move away from the idea that queer characters must to suffer in some way as a result of their sexuality. As a result of this, then revolutionary, idea, Annie on My Mind stands today as a beautifully written romance between two young girls who are looking for their place in the world. As a native New Yorker who frequents the Met, I cannot help but to picture Annie singing every time I enter the American Wing or to picture the girls in the middle of their sword fight when I walk through the Arms and Armor area. That being said, Garden’s writing does still have some straggling remnants of the novels that came before. While Annie and Liza may escape from the world of homophobia relatively unscathed, the same cannot be said for the older lesbians that serve as role models of a sort for the girls. Annie on My Mind is truly a revolutionary work of queer young adult literature, but it is not without the marks of its time.