Annie On My Mind

1. Bibliography
Garden, N. 1982. Annie On My Mind. New York, NY: Square Fish. ISBN 9780374400118

2. Summary
Eliza (Liza) Winthrop’s life changes when she meets Annie Kenyon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although they go to different schools, they still find the time to see each other when they can and become a very important part of each others lives. After Liza gets in trouble with her school's administration, and her school is beginning to lose funds while on the verge of being closed down, she is forced to help organize her school's fund drive. Her school teachers, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson, agree to offer their home as a meeting spot for the fundraiser and raise concern of not having someone to watch over their cats when they leave for vacation. Liza volunteers to take care of them and uses the house as a safe place for her and Annie to be themselves as their friendship grows into a relationship. When the teachers’ vacation is coming to an end and Liza and Annie are finally able to explore each other sexually, it all begins to crumble down when they are caught by Liza’s friend, Sally, and the school principal's right hand, Ms. Baxter. After Ms. Baxter reports her findings to the principal, a board meeting is held to discuss the matters. While no consequences were given to Liza, Ms. Widmer and Ms. Stevenson were fired. This traumatic event leads Liza to realize that even though they are going to come across traumatic life events because she is in love with a woman, she accepts her life and is able to move forward with Annie.

3. Discussion
To be honest, this book was probably the hardest one for me to finish because I felt that there was a lot of extra information that dragged on, and I didn’t see it as being necessary for the story. For example, I felt that the author went into too much detail on the ear piercing scandal. I am not sure how it played such an important role in the story, or this may just be my opinion because it was my least favorite part in the book. Whether it was the author's style, or the fact that it’s one of the older books I’ve read so far, I didn’t feel myself being interested in the storyline until later in the story. However, the feelings I found myself getting caught up in were rage. I felt this way because of the viewpoints of the people, especially Ms. Baxter. Her views on Annie, Eliza, Ms. Stevenson, Ms. Widmer, and the way she spoke of them was very bothersome to me. While reading, I put myself in someone else’s shoes who may have to hide who they are to please other people and I couldn’t imagine living my life that way.

After reading, I thought to myself, “Wow. I can’t believe people might have had to hide who they are and feel ashamed”. I then thought this book had to be classified under the subgenre of realistic fiction because the lives of the characters, both main and others, are very familiar and relatable. Also, readers may be able to relate to the story of Eliza discovering that she is a lesbian and having to hide it from her family while coming to terms with this.

4. Connections
The same-sex relationship topic is one that causes a lot of controversy, but I believe it should still be available to readers. Although it might not be a good book to discuss in a classroom setting because parents may not be accepting of a teacher discussing a book with the topic of homosexuality, YA readers may need a book such as this one to learn to accept the LGBTQ community and make those who are a part of that community feel empowered to stay true to themselves.