Description:
Shy, intellectual, and living in rural Oregon, Triinu Hoffman just doesn't fit in.
She does her best to hide behind her dyed hair and black wardrobe, but it's hard to ignore the bullying of Pip Weston and Principal Pinn. It's even harder to ignore the allure of other girls. As Triinu tumbles headlong into first love and teenage independence, she realizes that the differences that make her a target are also the differences that can set her free. With everyone in town taking sides in the battle for equal rights in Oregon, Triinu must stand up for herself, learn what it is to love and have her heart broken, and become her own woman.
Brief description: Karelia Stetz-Waters is the author of the novel The Admirer and the serial novel The Eastbank Killer; her work has also appeared in Calyx and First Time: An Anthology of Lost Virginity. She holds a master's degree in English from the University of Oregon and a bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature from Smith College. A member of Willamette Writers and the Gold Crown Literary Society, Karelia teaches technical writing and English composition at Linn-Benton Community College. She lives in Albany, Oregon, with her wife, Fay, their pug, Lord Byron, and their cat, Cyrus the Disembowler. Having grown up during the violent political debate surrounding Oregon's infamous anti-gay Ballot Measure 9, Karelia's first young adult novel, Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before, is loosely based on her own experiences of growing up gay in Oregon in the early nineties.
Review Quotes: Smartly set in a dangerous time, when the politicizing and normalizing of a virulent homophobia was gripping Oregon, a teen must find the audacity to simply be who she is. Stetz-Waters has drawn a genuine young heroine who reminds us, not without humor, that small acts of courage move the world forward. -Heather Lyn McDonald, director of the documentary film Ballot Measure 9--Heather Lyn McDonald