Two Boys Kissing
by David Levithan
I didn't like the premise when I read about it. When I finally got around to this one, how many times did I cry? I'm going to start crying again probably.
Queer and trans people almost never grow up in families who are like us, so discovering queer and trans history is one of the rituals of becoming part of the community. Learning how to hear the greek chorus of men who died of AIDS, of the real flawed transcendent people who came before me, is exactly how it feels to me to be queer.
I could quote half the book, but I'll try not to.
"We tried to tell them what was happening. We tried to tell them the disease was spreading. We needed doctors. We needed scientists. Most of all, we needed money, and to get money, we needed attention. We put our lives in other people's hands, and for the most part, they looked at is blankly and said, What lives? What hands?"