He's out but in love with his best friend/secret friend-with-benefits Ryan, who seems to crave a hookup with someone else even though Mark is quite obviously in love with him. Mark and Kate are both gay and in romantic dilemmas.

Told in two points of view, YOU KNOW ME WELL is the story of Bay Area teens Mark and Kate, who've sat next to each other in calculus for an entire year but don't know each other until one fateful night when they both happen to be partying in San Francisco the week leading up to the annual Pride parade. There are also messages about gap years, college, travel, and open communication between friends and between older kids and their parents. The books contains positive messages about LGBTQ youth and how support and friendship are necessary for teens to feel safe coming out. There's a smattering of strong language (including 'f-k' and 's-t') and several references to passionate kisses, friends who fool around and have had sex but remain 'just friends,' hooking up with new people, and loss of virginity, but none of it is graphic or crude. Although the emphasis is on the protagonists' platonic friendship, they each have romantic relationships causing them trouble. Parents need to know that You Know Me Well is a dual-point-of-view realistic novel written by acclaimed LGBTQ authors Nina LaCour and David Levithan about a gay junior and a lesbian senior who become fast friends the last week of school. They also drink at a party.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Agent: (for LaCour) Sara Crowe, Harvey Klinger (for Levithan) Bill Clegg, Clegg Agency.High schoolers get into and drink at a bar/nightclub with fake IDs. There are a lot of emotional switchbacks packed into a single week, but the authors, writing in alternating chapters, incisively explore the excitement and costs of change, and the importance of friends in figuring out what to keep and what to jettison. When Katie bumps into Mark, they become a team as Mark imagines life without Ryan, Katie imagines it with Violet, and the future looms.

Mark is at a gay bar competing in an underwear contest he wins, but the victory emboldens Ryan, the friend Mark wishes were more, to dance with an attractive guy.

It’s the start of Pride Week, and Katie feels like she has grown apart from her friends, and that meeting the girl she’s had a crush on forever is more than she can handle. Just because you live near San Francisco and there are other gay kids at school doesn’t mean that life is simple as LaCour ( Everything Leads to You) and Levithan ( Two Boys Kissing) know, teenage life is never simple.

You know me well by nina lacour