Annie on My Mind - Nancy Garden

Author: Nancy Garden
Title: Annie on My Mind
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux / McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd
Publication Date: 1982
Age range: 14 - 19
Genre: Controversial / Romance / Realistic Fiction
Rating: 1 2 3 4 5

Plot summary: Liza is a senior in high school, head of the student council and headed to MIT for university. She loves architecture and is constantly visiting museums and other interesting buildings around New York City. On one such visit she meets Annie. Annie, another 17 year-old with a lovely voice and lively imagination, attends a different school and the girls come from very different backgrounds. They feel an immediate connection and develop a fast friendship, soon falling in love. Though their families are supportive of their friendship, they are afraid to share their love for each other with the other people in their lives, fearing the judgment that comes from intolerance and misunderstanding. As they start to explore their emerging sexual feelings for each other, an opportunity presents itself as Liza house sits for two teachers over spring break. The girls are discovered just as they have carved out a space for themselves to investigate their feelings, and Liza has to deal with the fall out at school, as her bigoted principal and some of her classmates believe her behavior is immoral and indecent, even worthy of expulsion. Ultimately Liza and Annie have to deal with their feelings for each other and find a way to deal with the way everyone else around them acts.

Comments: It is interesting to read this book in its third decade of publication. The reaction of some of the self-righteous adults as well as fellow students of Liza's is disturbing. Annie and Liza are both caring, generous souls and it is painful to read about the hatred that is directed at them when people realize that they're not just close friends. Luckily Liza has a very supportive family – they never forget that this is their Liza, even if they are not happy about her sexual orientation. Her brother, Chad, is especially wonderful, as he never blames her, just continues to love her as his sister, even if he is confused about what is going on. This book does a good job of walking the reader through the emotional reactions that Liza (as the narrator) has to different situations, and they're reactions that anyone who is in love and who can't figure out how to make that love understood to others would have, no matter their gender. Garden does a great job of making the characters very realistic. I really enjoyed the description of the relationship of the two teachers, Ms Widmer and Ms Stevenson, who we find out at the very end have been together as a couple since they were teenagers, and who have dealt with exactly the same kind of confusion and disbelief that Liza and Annie are confronted with. The book takes the shape of Liza's reflections now that she is in her first semester at MIT, because she has distanced herself from Annie, who is now attending Berkeley College in California. Liza struggles to write Annie a letter and realizes she needs to work through her memories of the last year in order to continue her relationship with Annie.

Dates Read: 1 February – 4 February