User:FlowerAgainstAWall/sandbox

In the 2000s, at least 106 lesbian fiction novels were published, not including books that address more educational topics, such as lesbian sex and history.

Annie on my Mind is about a lesbian relationship told in flashback by Annie, who is not a college freshman. While they are sorting through their own feelings, they are also facing homophobia and the negative reactions of family and friends. Liza is new to the lesbian community, and trying to sort out her feeling of being attracted to another girl. When the two are caught together by school officials, their relationship is meant with homophobia, and Annie’s lover is threatened with expulsion. This also causes a lot of stress within their families since they have to keep their relationship hidden. In the end, while they go their separate ways after high school, they keep in contact. This book is important because it was a new genre in the 70s, published in the same month that the AIDS virus was named. This is also around the time where people standing accepting the gay community. It’s a lesbian novel that has a happy ending, about “us” not “them”

Another important fact about Annie On My Mine is that despite it’s storyline, it was removed from libraries and “a Kansas City minister led a mob of people in burning the book”

Fortunately, in the Case v. Unified School District No. 233 in 1995, a U.S. district court ruled that a Kansas school board cannot ban the book.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit is about a young girl with a very religious mother who reads her the fictional novel Jane Eyre but changes the ending so that the couple gets married and becomes missionaries. Among the religious work that Jeanette is forced into, she is embracing a lesbian identity that her mother does not approve of. When her mom finds out, they try to convert her and tell her its wrong. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit also became a BBC television series.

Carter, K. (1998). The consuming fruit: 'Oranges,' demons and daughters. CRITIQUE: Studies In Contemporary Fiction, (1), 15.

This book is important because it portrays the views some people really have on the lesbian community. What is also interesting about the book is that it tells the story of the author because she based Jeanette in the story off her own experience. While the storyline is quite sad, the title is uplifting because  because  way that oranges represent heterosexuality and the title expressing that not everyone is heterosexual. According to this website, an undergraduate student used the book as a research subject for a paper on deconstructing the binary, alongside Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Additionally,this school in New Jersey has it on their curriculum as a coming of age American Literature novel as an elective for Juniors and Seniors. This book can really get people talking about sexuality and its connection to religion as well as family. It’s a great book to start a discussion on what the bible says about homosexuality and how that plays out in religious families.