Queerleaders by M.B. Guel: A Positive Coming-Out Story
What an absolute delight to begin this year with this post about Queerleaders by M.B. Guel. Young Adult is not usually my go to genre, but the premise of this one spoke to me. Turns out that my intuition was correct. What a swoon worthy story! A perfect and positive way to start the new year ✨.
Mackenzie (Mack) and Lila are best friends. They attend the same Catholic high school. Mack is gay and has a secret crush on Veronica, the beautiful and most popular cheerleader. Lila loves Mack to death but she’s getting a bit fed up with Mack’s swooning over Veronica. Mack believes Lila can’t see what she sees in Veronica. She writes a note for Lila to help her understand things her way. Unfortunately, the note falls into the hands of the last person she wants to read it: Veronica’s boyfriend Chad!
Chad is an asshole and outs her. Mack is crumbling with embarrassment. But then Lila just tells her to buckle up and seek revenge by stealing the cheerleaders from their boyfriends 😕. The weirdest thing happens, apparently the cheerleaders are into Mack. She gains confidence by the minute. With the confidence comes the arrogance and Mack makes mistakes that are atypical. Her friendship with Lila is in danger. And she almost can’t see the best thing that is right in front of her.
After reading this I immediately went to look for more titles by M.B. Guel. What a wonderful writer they are. If I were a young adult today, I would be thrilled. Reading a novel like this would make me over the moon ❤️. I leave you with a quote by M.B. Guel which spoke to me (from Bella Books):
The typical teen coming-out story tends to be sad and almost a little too realistic. Growing up and talking to my other Queer friends, I began a mental catalog of all the coming-out stories I had been lucky enough to hear. With the world changing, I began to realize that not all–coming-out stories were sad like the media had tried to make me think. Of course, there is a place for those stories as an important part of the Queer experience, but I want to write about the diverse ways people experience coming out. It was important to me to write a coming-out story that didn’t make you feel like the world was ending with each turn of the page. – M.B. Guel
