Butch girl Mike throws herself into sports and plumbing as she struggles with her father’s suicide and her mother’s isolation, supported by her gay, cross-dressing male cheerleader best friend. She falls in love with straight new girl Xanadu.
Publisher’s Description
From the author of Luna comes this heartbreaking yet hopeful novel about a small-town girl who falls in love with the cool, complicated, and sexy new girl in town, but who is just out of reach.
In this fresh, poignant novel Mike is struggling to come to terms with her father’s suicide and her mother’s detachment from her family. Mike (real name Mary Elizabeth) is gay and likes to pump iron, play softball and fix plumbing. When a glamorous new girl, Xanadu, arrives in Mike’s small Kansas town, she falls in love at first sight. Xanadu is everything that Mike is not – cool, confident, feminine, sexy and – straight! No matter how close their growing friendship is, Mike is always going to be ‘far from Xanadu’.
Following the success of Luna, Julie Ann Peters’ has written a heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful, novel which will speak to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone who can’t love them back
Genre: Contemporary
Representation:
Gender:
Cis girls: Mike – butch, masculine of center
Cis boys: Jamie – crossdressing gay male cheerleader
Sexual Orientation:
Lesbian/Queer: Mike
Gay boys: Jamie
Romantic Orientation:
Homoromantic: Mike, Jamie
Race/Ethnicity:
White: Mike, Jamie
Trigger warnings: suicide/suicidal ideation, substance abuse or alcoholism
Own voices: lesbian