YA Pride: 2012 LGBT YA Books, October-December

Every Friday in June, I'll be listing the YA novels first published in the United States in 2012 that include LGBT main characters. Today I'm covering books published in the fourth quarter: October-December. Check out books published in January-March here; April-June here; and July-September here. If you haven't already read my disclaimers/explanations about how I compiled these lists, you can read them here. Meanwhile, please don't forget that I have not read the vast majority of these titles, and inclusion on this list does not mean that I personally endorse them. I make no guarantees of quality here; I'm only listing the LGBT YA titles published in 2012.

Enjoy browsing the lists!

OCTOBER

Diverse Energies Edited by Tobias Buckell and Joe Monti Publisher: Tu Books

Publisher's Description: In a world gone wrong, heroes and villains are not always easy to distinguish and every individual has the ability to contribute something powerful.

In this stunning collection of original and rediscovered stories of tragedy and hope, the stars are a diverse group of students, street kids, good girls, kidnappers, and child laborers pitted against their environments, their governments, differing cultures, and sometimes one another as they seek answers in their dystopian worlds. Take a journey through time from a nuclear nightmare of the past to society's far future beyond Earth with these eleven stories by masters of speculative fiction. Includes stories by Paolo Bacigalupi, Ursula K. Le Guin, Malinda Lo, Cindy Pon, Daniel H. Wilson, and more.

Notes: “Next Door” by Rahul Kanakia and “Good Girl” by Malinda Lo include LGBT main characters.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children By Kirsten Cronn-Mills Publisher: Flux

Publisher's Description: The lives and loves of a teenage transboy music geek

Gabe has always identified as a boy, but he was born with a girl’s body. With his new public access radio show gaining in popularity, Gabe struggles with romance, friendships, and parents—all while trying to come out as transgendered. An audition for a station in Minneapolis looks like his ticket to a better life in the big city. But his entire future is threatened when several violent guys find out Gabe the popular DJ is also Elizabeth from school.

After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling Publisher: Hyperion

Publisher's Description: If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake—whether set in the days after the change, or decades far in the future.

New York Times bestselling authors Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, and Jane Yolen are among the many popular and award-winning storytellers lending their talents to this original and spellbinding anthology.

Notes: “Blood Drive” by Jeffrey Ford and “Reality Girl” by Richard Bowes include LGBT main characters.

The You Know Who Girls: Freshman Year By Annameekee Hesik Publisher: Bold Strokes Books

Publisher's Description: Abbey Brooks, Gila High freshman-to-be, never thought a hellish day of shopping at the mall with her best friend, Kate, could change her life. But when she orders French fries from the flirtatious Hot Dog on a Stick Chick, she gets more than deep-fried potatoes. Abbey tries to ignore the weird, happy feeling in her gut, but that proves to be as impossible as avoiding the very insistent (and—rumor has it—very lesbian) players on Gila High’s girls’ basketball team. They want freakishly long-legged Abbey to try out, and Abbey doesn’t hate the idea. But Kate made Abbey pinky swear to avoid basketball and to keep away from the you- know-who girls on the team.

Sometimes promises can’t be kept. And sometimes girls in uniform are impossible to resist.

Ask the Passengers By A.S. King Publisher: Little, Brown

Publisher's Description: Astrid Jones copes with her small town's gossip and narrow-mindedness by sending love to the passengers in the airplanes flying overhead. Maybe they'll know what to do with it. Maybe it'll make them happy. Maybe they'll need it. Her mother doesn't want it, her father's always stoned, her perfect sister is too busy trying to fit in, and the people in her small town would never allow her to love the person she really wants to, another girl named Dee. There's no one Astrid feels she can talk to about this deep secret or the profound questions that she's trying to answer. But little does she know just how much sending her love, and asking the right questions, will affect the passengers' lives, and her own, for the better.

In this unmistakably original portrayal of a girl struggling to break free of society's boxes and definitions, Printz Honor author A.S. King asks readers to question everything—and offers hope to those who will never stop seeking and sharing real love.

Demon Eyes By Scott Tracey Publisher: Flux

Publisher's Description: Book 2 in the dazzling Witch Eyes series

Braden thought he had destroyed Lucien, a calculating demon trapped for centuries in a human body. But he’s haunted by disturbing  visions of the undead demon promising  to return and a terrible warning: The feud between Belle Dam’s two witch dynasties—ruled by Catherine Lansing and Braden’s  father—is about to get unimaginably worse. As young girls start disappearing from town,  Braden knows Lucien’s diabolical scheme has been set in motion. Forced to explore the unknown powers of his witch eyes, Braden becomes the ultimate weapon in a deadly magical war.

NOVEMBER

In Stone: A Grotesque Fairy Tale By Jeremy Jordan King Publisher: Bold Strokes Books

Publisher's Description: Jeremy is stuck, like most young New Yorkers, in a world between adolescence and adulthood. Just when he thought that he was an average, blend-in-with-the-crowd gay kid, he becomes the victim of a terrible act of homophobia.

Thankfully, a mysterious something comes to his aid. Garth is a gargoyle, trapped in stone and cursed to live an immortal life. Human and monster must become friends and confront the mysterious and magical events of the past that have brought them together.

Scrivener’s Moon By Philip Reeve Publisher: Scholastic

Publisher's Description: The final adventure in Philip Reeve's brilliant Fever Crumb trilogy.

The Scriven people are brilliant, mad — and dead.

All except one, whose monstrous creation is nearly complete — a giant city on wheels. New London terrifies the rest of the world, and an army of mammoth-riders gathers to fight it. Meanwhile, young Fever Crumb begins a hunt for Ancient technology in the icy strongholds of the north. She finds a mysterious black pyramid full of secrets. It will change her world forever.

Scrivener's Moon follows Fever Crumb and A Web of Air to complete one of the most exciting and inventive fantasy adventures series ever written.

DECEMBER

Pretty Little Liars #12: Burned By Sara Shepard Publisher: HarperTeen

Publisher's Description: High school seniors Aria, Emily, Hanna, and Spencer have made terrible mistakes, but nothing compares to what they did last spring break. Their stalker, A, found out and is exposing their darkest secrets, one by one, until the girls come clean about what they did.

And this time A wants to do more than ruin their pretty little lives—A wants to end them.... . .