Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

Garden, Nancy. Annie on My Mind. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992. ISBN-10: 0-374404147

Summary 
Eliza and Annie meet at the Metropolitan Museum one afternoon and begin to date, despite living in different neighborhoods and attending different schools. Annie attends public school while Liza attends the private Foster Academy. Liza volunteers to housesit for a pair of Foster's teachers over the Christmas vacation. Presumably the women are just roommates, but as Annie and Liza discover in their explorations of the house-- they're lesbians. A neighbor and Foster Academy teachers sees Annie and Liza in the house, and investigates finding the girls partially dressed and a bed mussed. Liza faces possible expulsion at school and the teachers are also in trouble. All of this puts a strain on their relationship.

Critical Evaluation 
One of the first gay romances with a (somewhat) happy ending, Annie on my Mind is a sweet love story that will appeal to readers of all sexual orientation. In fact, if the couple were heterosexual, the story would be trite, dramatic, and predictable. This in fact, is the strong point of the novel-- by being such a typical love story, Annie and Liza show that lesbians are not that different than other couples.

Reader's Annotation 
Annie and Liza never dreamed that they would meet another couple like them-- lesbians-- but when Liza's teachers turn out to be more than roommates, it opens up doors they never dreamed of.

Bibliotherapeutic Usefulness 
Useful as a coming out story. Also, because it is so similar to heterosexual romance novels, straight readers will be able to relate to the gay characters.

Genre and Subject 
Gay romance, realistic fiction, coming out

Why I read it
It's a turning point in gay fiction-- a happy ending