Day 6: Favorite Young Adult Book

Dancer From the Dance by Andrew Holleran holds many special memories for me which makes it my all time favorite young adult book:

• It’s the first gay themed fiction I ever read.
• Andrew Holleran became my favorite author after I read it.
• I read this book twice in one setting back in college.  It’s that good!
• I still own my first copy of it which is the one pictured here.
• At the time I read it, I was dating a guy who looked like the one pictured on the cover.  That’s not all that important now.
• I had only been out of the closet for a year at the time so the world in this book was completely new to me.

It’s the story of Malone, a beautiful young man who is looking for love in New York’s gay scene back during a time of carefree bathhouses and eccentric parties and hip discoes, back when sex wasn’t dangerous and the GLBT liberation had barely started.  And the ending of this book will haunt you forever.

While I’ve never been to New York, I do remember the first time I ever went to a gay bar, back when I was young and pure and looking for love.  My, how times have changed.  How I’ve changed!

But Holleran’s book played a very important part in my life back during those years, as I’m sure it did for many readers.  And that is why it is my all time favorite young adult book to this day!