Come Home to My Heart

Gr 9 Up–In Redgate’s opposites attract queer love story about two girls falling in love in a rural South Carolina town, romance is secondary to each girl’s search for identity amidst their respective family struggles. Gloria is the poster girl for small-town popularity: a member of the Homecoming court, an active religious youth group member, and an academic overachiever. Her ultra-conservative religious parents do not know that Gloria is attracted to girls until she neglects to clear her internet history, which prompts them to kick her out of the house. It is on her own that Gloria becomes better friends with Xia, an Asian American misanthropic classmate who has a secret of her own. Through this beautifully written tale of two girls finding and loving each other—and themselves—in the often-hostile environment of a small Southern town, the author explores what it means to be religious as a queer person and how family is not always determined through biology.