Love & Other Curses is a YA novel about gender, sexuality and gender fluidity in small town America. Sam is 16 and gay. His family has no problem with that, and he doesn’t have any trouble at school either. His mother died some time ago and Sam’s main connection with her is through notes she left in 21 of her vinyl albums of her favorite artists, with assessments of the music. He has memorized them all. There are some good albums on the list.

It’s summertime and Sam is preoccupied by his family curse — those who fall in love before they are 17 will die. So far he hasn’t been at risk, but this might change because he meets Tom Swift, who is trans, and whose family is not happy with his transition to male. They form a friendship and they get close, but there are also tensions between them.

Sam has a lot of other friends, often with striking names. The biggest characters are the drag queens at the Shangri-La gay bar, which Sam sneaks into to help them with their makeup. They give him some sense of how to cope as someone who doesn’t fit into the mainstream. They are funny and warm, and they give Sam a sense of how he can form a life for himself while remaining in town.

Love & Other Curses is a great read with a bit of drama and a nice collection of elements — magic, songs, poetry, farce, love, and romance. Michael Thomas Ford is a prolific author and he is great at bringing the reader into Sam’s world. It will give young readers some understanding of LGBTQ issues.

© 2019 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.