If I Tell You (Alicia Tuckerman, Pantera)

Seventeen-year-old Alexandra has known for a while that she is a lesbian but she hasn’t told anyone. When a new family moves to her small country town and spiteful gossip starts to circulate that the new girl, Phoenix, is a ‘dyke’, it quickly becomes apparent why Alexandra has kept her sexuality to herself. As Phoenix and Alexandra get to know each other, their will-they-or-won’t-they romance (we know they will) offers Alexandra a glimmer of hope amid the prejudice—until tragedy strikes. Readers of contemporary YA novels that explore romance in the face of adversity will appreciate this debut, although the book’s dramatic developments can feel a little jarring. Those seeking stories with a queer protagonist will be pleased to have another offering. While author Alicia Tuckerman effectively captures the claustrophobia of small-town homophobia, the often unfiltered bigotry of secondary characters—while entirely realistic—can be painful to read, and renders some of the characters irredeemable. If I Tell You is a modest coming-of-age story about the pain and confusion of coming out, how secrets and expectations can affect families and friendships, and how some decisions are scary but need to be made.

Michael Earp is manager of the Younger Sun bookshop 

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