Reviews

Hear Us Out!: Lesbian and Gay Stories of Struggle, Progress, and Hope, 1950 to the Present by Nancy Garden

drbarton's review

5.0

Unique telling of the history of the GLBTQ movement. Each section is devoted to a different decade, beginning with the 1950s. At the beginning of each new decade explored, Nancy Garden gives historical accounts of events of the time and the effects on the GLBTQ community. Young adults of the decades and their own accounts of becoming aware of themselves and the pressure from society to change then follow the historical accounts. The book, told in many different voices gives the reader a great sense of feeling as if you are a part of the story, not merely an observer, and would be a wonderful tool to teach voice in a Language Arts classroom. The stories would also pair well when examining social issues of different eras. For instance, if discussing the 1960s and the age of protest, reading the section of the 1960s depicted through the eyes of a young man who witnessed the Stonewall Inn riots in New York, would see a protest not often discussed or examined.

mesy_mark's review

3.0

So this book had great potential but I wish the essays, like the 2000s one, had more to t and wasn't simply a gloss over. There is a lot of information in these decades for LGBT change and I wish there was just more. The stories are good in general. I wish there were more happy stories but I get the time period that it was set in. Overall I enjoyed the content and liked this from the author that brought one Annie On My Mind.

alisacress's review

emotional hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

5.0

Nancy Garden never disappointed. I loved this book as well as Annie On My Mind. If only the author lived to see gay marriage become legal in all 50 states. She’d be so proud.

sscarlettka's review

3.0

The essays were great but the short stories fell flat 

priyabhakta's review

3.0

A mix of stories of varying quality, highlighting the changes in opinions and political landscape towards LGBT matters throughout the years.

inamerata's review

dark sad

This would have been a low rating for being sloppy misery porn, but then the awful, serophobic 80s essay. Garden's writing about HIV/AIDS has too many echoes of cishet fearmongering, even implying there were swathes of people knowingly and maliciously infecting others. This is factually wrong and irresponsible anywhere, but especially when your target audience is young and/or ignorant of LGBT histories.

Beyond that, most stories are poorly written and extremely, dully grim. The overt homophobia and abuse present in every story includes an assortment of homophobic/corrective rape, murder, physical assault, suicide, and so on. The unrelenting brutality was neither cathartic nor informative, and the promised "hope" never reaches beyond "maybe one day being out won't mean losing everything of your life before."