Alice Austen Lived Here

Written by Alex Gino

Narrated by Alex Gino

From the award-winning author of Melissa, a phenomenal story about queerness past, present, and future.

Sam is very in touch with their own queer identity. They're nonbinary, and their best friend, TJ, is nonbinary as well. Sam's familyis very cool with it... as long as Sam remembers that nonbinary kids are also required to clean their rooms, do their homework,and try not to antagonize their teachers too much.The teacher-respect thing is hard when it comes to Sam’s history class, because their teacher seems to believe that only DeadStraight Cis White Men are responsible for history. When Sam’s home borough of Staten Island opens up a contest for a newstatue, Sam finds the perfect non-DSCWM subject: photographer Alice Austen, whose house has been turned into a museum,and who lived with a female partner for decades.Soon, Sam's project isn't just about winning the contest. It's about discovering a rich queer history that Sam's a part of -- a queerhistory that no longer needs to be quiet, as long as there are kids like Sam and TJ to stand up for it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781338801361

Reviews for Alice Austen Lived Here

[J C · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

It is a rather depressing spectacle to see perverse, unnatural and downright bad thoughts, behaviors and visions represented as normal and even great. The author’s target audience is obviously teens. Teens who are still figuring out what is good and true. Teens who don’t know what they’re going to do with their lives. Teens who will be very vulnerable to the unfulfilling and terrible temptations that are fawned over and glorified in this story. Kids will be hurt by this book and all of the other identical stories that have essentially been copy and pasted into different covers. They will be led astray down a path that only holds misery and regret. To all of the young people out there who are faced with this looming crisis, I sincerely wish good luck. You’re going to need it.

[Em Callahan, she-they · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a middle school teacher, I would recommend this to my students. I love the diverse representation and how much of the elements are inspired by the author's real life. I'm also from across the Arthur Kill in New Jersey so I have all the good feelings toward the setting. The plot is a bit chaotic, but I think it does a fabulous job representing the ups and downs real tweens experience. I appreciate the lack of homophobia experienced by the characters; kids need positive queer representation!