Rainbow Briefs edited by Sara Winters

Somehow, in my switch between e-readers and email accounts, its seems a handful of titles got lost, so I'm happy to have found both the books themselves and an opportunity to share them with you!

Rainbow Briefs is a lovely YA LGBT anthology edited by Sara Winters. These are stories taken from the Goodreads Young Adult LGBT Books Group, with each based on a picture prompt shared with the group. Although comprised of about 15 stories, there are 2 in particular of interest to readers such as myself.

The first, Designing Sam, is based on the following prompt:

A slim girl with dark hair stands in front of her full-length mirror, looking into it. From the mirror, a muscular young man with the same hair and eyes stares back.

This was a powerful, emotional story of a young man coming out to a world that doesn't understand his gender, much less his sexuality. It's a sad tale a times, full of sorrow and pain, but one with an understanding (and uplifting) ending.

The second, In Unexpected Places, is one of the few that doesn't share it's prompt. Instead, it gets right to the story, which is a far less serious, almost madcap adventure about a young gay man and the young transgender woman he befriends. You can almost picture this as a 90s movie comedy, with the two outcasts trying to survive one of those too-crazy-to-be-true days.

Reviewed by Sally