I have never read another book which dealt with special needs teens with such honesty and positivity. Crystal and her brother JD were both affected by their mother’s drinking and drug use during pregnancy. Both have struggled in school as a result, but both have become excellent human beings with their own gifts and talents. Through Crystal’s bravery and determination and ability to forgive, she creates a safe environment for others who are punished for their sexual preference, for who they are.

The story is filled with twists and turns, tense and engaging moments, and sheer fun. This is a quick and fulfilling read.

I picked up this book because I thought it would be like about queer empowerment, and it definitely did have that and that aspect was great, but I didn't love this book.
What I did like:
- the queer representation
- disability representation, because books rarely, very rarely, feature characters like Crystal, JD, etc., and I love that the author attempts to destigmatize and debunk stereotypes and like truly portray the characters positively as well as writing about their challenges
- awareness on important problems like bullying, harassment, abuse, addiction
- the artwork was absolutely gorgeous. like very very very beautiful.
What I didn't like:
- so many cliches about love and lust and high school that it made a lot of the story and even writing feel immature
- I almost felt like the story relied on like social and political issues to the point that it felt almost excessive. like instead of trying to protest and advocate twenty ideas, it would've been less complicated and also just like more powerful to read if the focus was on a few
- Covid...I really didn't like the addition of the corona virus in the story. the pandemic is our inescapable reality and I would've really liked to escape into a world where I didn't have to think about it
- the blurb made me think this was going to be like a new adult novel where the characters would be adults (because what high school student is a homeowner?), but they were actually only in high school and that made some events in this book seem a little unrealistic.
- with so much queer and disability representation...did they have to be all white characters? i mean like it's great that there's a lot of diversity, but honestly that almost makes it worse that there's no racial diversity, because it's very clear the author is progressive on so many important issues but apparently it would have been too much to make the characters not all White and blond :|

Crystal Rose woke up at 3:00 am after dreaming of sex with her senior classmate, Haley. Later that morning, she encountered a cow moose and her calf behind her house in Clear, Alaska, and was reminded of her mother abandoning Crystal and her brother JD fourteen years ago. She hurries to answer a phone call from a man who seems to know Crystal but refuses to engage in conversation. Her grandfather, Mac, struggles down the stairs, coughing and feverish. Her grandmother, Summer, will take him to the hospital, thinking he has Covid. These incidents combine to change Crystal’s life forever. Will she be abandoned again? Or will she find the strength to come out to herself and the community and find others who need a safe house to live?

This story is remarkable in every way. Every chapter presents twists and turns and revelations. The characters are varied and deeply drawn. There is humor and sex and violence and, above all, love and redemption. I laughed and cried and gasped in surprise. Read this book!

I have had the privilege of reading the manuscript of Brooke Skipstone’s Crystal’s House of Queers, and I can wholeheartedly say that this story touched me in a way that no other book has. Despite growing up in a very different environment than Crystal (a liberal New England town as opposed to a conservative town in Alaska), as a queer teenage girl, I felt very proximate to the experiences of the characters in this novel. It was a powerful feeling to relate so deeply to characters who have grown up so differently, and I gained a lot of perspective and care for issues of sexual assault and types of homophobia that I have been privileged enough to not experience first hand.
From the moment I started reading I felt captivated by the characters in this novel. Crystal’s life is riddled with hardship. She struggles with special needs, COVID-19 threatens her and her family including her grandparents, and on top of it all she struggles with her sexuality and the suffocating presence of toxic masculinity and abuse in her small town. Yet through it all, Crystal remains levelheaded, kind, and artistic. Her art, and the art included throughout this novel, enhanced my connection to the characters. Not only do the visuals provide me with an image of what the characters look like, but they connected me even more deeply to Crystal since they are drawn “by her.”
Each of the main characters, Crystal, Haley, and Payton, brought an important dimension to their shared experience. From all walks of high school life, these girls unite under their shared experience as queer women. They represent a spectrum of experiences that I think anyone can find themselves somewhere in. The generation and familial layers revealed throughout the story only serve to deepen the importance of the themes tackled in Crystal’s House of Queers.
As for the writing, this book is a fast-paced page turner. All of the story takes place in less than a week, and it feels that way by how quickly things move and how packed each second is with action, emotion, and development.
I highly recommend Crystal’s House of Queers to anyone, but especially to young, queer, female, readers, as I have never felt so seen and represented by a novel before.

Crystal’s House of Queers is a story of love, coming out, and fighting to protect a way of life. In-person school has just started in mid-September in the small town of Clear, Alaska, after Covid shut the school from mid-March through May and from mid-August until early September. Crystal Rose, a senior, sees her long-time friend Haley for the first time in months. Though Haley has had many boyfriends for the past several years, she and Crystal kissed frequently in fifth grade. Now they both are very interested in each other. Crystal stops Haley’s boyfriend from his daily assault on Haley in the lockerroom, starting a chain of threatening events and a renewed physical relationship between the two girls. Enter the charismatic and fearless Payton, openly gay, who helps them both to come out, be proud, and defend themselves against toxic male masculinity.

Complicating the girls’ love is the hospitalization of Crystal’s grandparents due to Covid and the potential return of her parents who abandoned her and her disabled brother fourteen years ago.

This book is empowering and very entertaining. All the young women stay strong, even as they evince an air of vulnerability. The characters are unique and deeply layered. The pacing is perfect, full of suspense and danger, as well as love, humor, redemption, and friendship.

Set in rural Clear, Alaska, Crystal’s life, and the lives of her friends, are anything but clear. The use of needing clarity without secrets and lies, either intentional or by omission, creates a powerful narrative about the need to be yourself despite what society says. Crystal Rose, the main character, is both empowered and empowering throughout the course of events, finding the courage to voice thoughts she hadn’t before and helping others do the same. She offers what many LGBT+ teens (and adults!) wish they had, a safe place to stay and people who love them.

The cast of characters for this is large and diverse, in range and experience and personality. It is delightful to be able to read about them coming together, creating a community amongst themselves in the few days over which the novel takes place. There is not only romantic love but also platonic and familial love, all presented in equal amounts. It’s amazing to read and I almost wish I could be a part of it.

The art included as well adds such a unique element to the story. In truth, Crystal’s line drawings remind me of the story itself: one continuous thread fraught with twists and turns and kinks to create something wonderful to be seen at the end. Overall, I’m delighted by the different elements that Brooke Skipstone weaves together in her narrative.

Crystal is a unique, strong, and innately protective young woman who is bold enough to stand up for herself and her brother who has disabilities. She loves strongly, but she also loves secretly, that is until her secret love is attacked by her self-righteous, toxic boyfriend and brothers. Crystal, despite her own disabilities, puts herself between her secret love and the abusers. She also gains a friend in arms (literally armed), who helps inspire her to openly love who she loves and be who she is. Together, they protect those they love and create a safe place for people to be themselves in Crystal's home. All the while, Crystal's grandparents who raised her are battling Covid in the hospital and her long-gone parents have suddenly reappeared. It's a story filled with intrigue and passion, confusion and clarity, secrets and truths. I have read other books by Brooke Skipstone, and they are all layered with complex, relatable emotions from realistic characters and all have powerful, thought-provoking messages.

On her way out of the house, Crystal's grandmother scolds her for not wearing a bra. Her grandfather tells her not to bend over in front of the boys. Why? Because it would be Crystal's fault if the boys think dirty thoughts? Crystal knows she can't talk to her grandparents about her sex dreams of girls or about her sexual encounter last Saturday with her longtime friend, Kato, an event she now regrets. Later during lunch, Crystal returns to her house only to find her grandparents leaving for the hospital in Fairbanks because they both might have Covid. Her brother may be moving away with his girlfriend tomorrow. Crystal would then be alone in her house that evening. However, over the next two days, her house fills with friends, gay like herself. All because Crystal dares to defend Haley from abuse by her supposed boyfriend.

This story is filled with suspense, revelations, love, and humor. I cried and laughed and always wanted to read more. I loved Crystal's drawings, "tough girl" Payton, cute-as-hell Sydney, the sex scenes (there are a few), and the message of being true to yourself and your needs and don't take shit from anyone.

This book kept me interested through every page. So many secrets are revealed, so much drama, but yet so much love and forgiveness and hope and resilience. A great illustration of the real damage caused by the condemnation of homosexuality. And the great freedom that results when gays raise their own flags and protect each other. I loved this book.

The opening sex scene definitely grabs attention, and from there the story races forward in the little town of Clear, Alaska, where intentions and past lives are anything but clear. Crystal Rose and her brother JD were abandoned by their mother fourteen years ago, both damaged by their mother’s drug and alcohol use. Their grandparents told the kids that their parents died in a car wreck some years later, thinking this information would be easier to live with than having absent parents who never wanted to see them. But the day the story starts, Crystal learns her father is alive and wanting to see her. Maybe her mother is too. She also learns that her grandparents have Covid and leave the house to drive to the hospital in Fairbanks where they both become seriously ill.

Crystal and Haley are now 18 years old and obviously attracted to each other. When Crystal sees Haley’s oafish boyfriend, Dylan, forcing himself on Haley in front of her school locker, Crystal screams for him to stop. After Dylan is sent home, Haley is free to sit with Crystal and renew the relationship they stopped in fifth grade. From there, Dylan’s anger at both Crystal and Haley build until Crystal has to save her friend once again.

Payton Reed, openly gay, and her younger sister Sydney enter the story and help Crystal and Haley protect themselves from Dylan and rumors starting about Cyrstal and Haley’s relationship.

With never a dull moment, the story progresses from one imminent danger to another, from one dramatic revelation to even more. Beyond the thrills and suspense, however, is a unique love story between individuals and among a group of tough-as-nails queers who find themselves and help protect others like themselves. Great story.

Book Review for Crystal’s House of Queers
Full review for this title will be posted at: @cattleboobooks on Instagram!

NetGalley ARC Educator 550974

An amazingly wonderful one sitting read. You won't want to put it down. Three generations of women come to terms with who they are and who they can be. Fighting rape, physical, mental and drug abuse they push through and raise their rainbow flags on their own terms. This story does take place during the beginnings of Covid19. Hope to read more from this author. You will not regret reading it.

Trigger warnings: Rape, Physical Abuse, Drug Use and Covid19

I enjoyed this story. It was good to see queer representation in a positive and empowered light. The characters go through tough and realistic problems, but the tone is positive. I had trouble with the timeline, which seems too compressed--the whole story takes place over the course of a few days, definitely less than a week, and in that time there are new relationships, found family, and a ton of personal and emotional growth. The teenage characters are able to take a very emotionally mature view of others and their circumstances. Not to say that it's impossible, just that given the issues they had to work through and the short timeline, I would have understood/expended more angst on the way there. I also had difficult with the opening scene, which is maybe more graphic than I would expect in a teen book, at least on the first page. Of course a page later it turns out to be a dream, but it could put off some readers (or scandalize parents, whose teens might benefit from reading the book). I'm not sure if it would fly in my small rural library, though I think those kids would appreciate the inclusiveness and depiction of rural life. I liked the way Crystal's drawings really show her talent and are incorporated into the story as illustrations. I also liked the representation of learning disabilities/differences and the rural Alaska setting (I'm from Maine, which has some similarities).