Dishes, by Rich Wallace

Summertime out East - Straight Danny spends the summer working aa a dishwasher in a gay bar, running, hanging out at the beach, getting to know his Dad who has never been a big part of his life, checking out the girls, softball, the GIRL. It's a summertime story. No tough issues, no drama, no angst. It's ok to be straight seems to be the message.

A Northern light, by Jennifer Donnelly

This historical fiction story takes place in rural Maine at the turn of the last century. Life was slower, more agricultural, and a young woman had to make a choice between love or a career. Love in a time before birth control meant marriage, babies, and backbreaking labor to keep a house and farm going. So seventeen year old Mattie is resisting the growing pressure she feels to marry the young man who loves her. Her father needs her to help raise her younger brother and sisters and to stay at home. Her teacher at school is trying to show her the possibility of a college education in New York. Girls in 1906 decided their lives early, and Mattie has already stayed in school long past the time most girls quit school and married.

This is an introspective, quiet story. Well written, and one that will stay with me for a long time I think.