Jo is a great character, and her voice is phenomenal. We can see inside of her, see her struggle, see her stumblings and successes and we root for her. The voice of this narrator is one of the best I’ve read in a very long time. Can she stay hidden in plain sight when all she wants is to be who she is – out and proud? But then she meets Mary Carlson and her sweetheart of a brother, and everything changes. She just says she won’t get close to anyone, and it won’t matter. So she does what he asks – she changes her clothes, her hair, and starts going by Joanna again, rather than Jo. All Jo wants is a teen segment on his radio show where she can talk about being out and what that means to a Christian, and that’s what her dad holds over her head. And then Jo’s dad does the impossible – he asks her to be a little less out, to be a little less proud, to hide who she is so they can get settled into their new life. But then her radio evangelist dad remarries, and the three of them pack up and move to small Rome, Georgia… where out and proud doesn’t exactly exist. She’s got a group of friends, some safe spaces, and she knows who she is and who she wants to be. In Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit, Joanna Gordon has lived in Atlanta her whole life, and she’s been out and proud for years. The type where the stakes are high for the MC, even if it seems like small potatoes to the outside world. The type with a super authentic voice, the type with a character who knows who she is, even though she happens to be hiding it. It was fun to slide into a different kind of contemporary than I’d been reading, and it made me realize that I wanted more of this type of YA. I picked this book up last July before meeting (and being on a panel with!) Jaye Robin Brown in Washington DC at OutWrite Festival, and I’m so SO glad I did.
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