“There’s no point worrying so hard you can’t breathe. Life’s short, and you’ve got to make sure there’s time to live it.”
Sharon and Tammy are paired up as pen pals for a program implemented at religious schools across the state of California. Sharon attends Catholic school in San Francisco; Tammy attends a Christian school in Orange County, where her aunt and uncle run a church that is very active in helping Anita Bryant try to legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Tammy is a lesbian, a secret she has only confessed to her diary, in letters she writes to Harvey Milk, the only gay person she knows of. Sharon, too, has a secret: her brother Peter is gay, and is becoming more and more involved in the fight for gay rights.
Sharon and Tammy begin writing to one another, and little by little, they start depending on this one connection to someone outside of their constricting circle of life. They begin to trust one another with their secrets, their fears, and their wishes, which serve as comfort and in some ways, an added source of stress.
As Tammy deals with her family’s increased fervor to strip gays and lesbians of their rights, Sharon starts to get involved with a women’s bookstore outside the Castro, and begins exploring an interest in punk and new wave music.
When things come to a head in Tammy’s life, everything changes. Suddenly Sharon isn’t sure who she is or what she wants, and she knows she’s both tired of keeping secrets and yet scared of what revealing or accepting those secrets could do.
This is a powerful book that is very well-researched and authentic to the time in which it is set. It’s definitely well-written, moving, and emotional but I found the family melodrama a bit excessive, and Sharon’s constant indecisiveness wore me down after a while.
I’m grateful to have been part of the blog tour for this book. Inkyard Press and NetGalley provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!
No comments:
Post a Comment