BookReview~ Poems That Fuel Thoughts by Gert Diedericks

BOOK REVIEW

BY CHIMNESE DAVIDS

TITLE: POEMS THAT FUEL THOUGHTS

AUTHOR/POET: GERT DIEDERICKS

The poet and his craft

I am a poet, because poetry gives the opportunity to express one of my passions, namely to visualize love and freedom in a unique way. Poetry is an art of words; a discovery of the soul, woven into thought patterns and embodied by love, the joy of living being merely one of the paths to explore. Poetry is furthermore a world of self- actualization, whereby the poet comes to understand the yearning to live passionately in order to internalize the essence of love and of exultation.

My credo is: “Life is about choices”. We do not necessarily have a say in what happens to us in this life, though we do have a choice regarding our reactions toward incidents in our life. I am a free spirit, independent and only driven by the passion of my heart.

I treasure understanding; the love for wisdom, a need for learning, respect to all humans through non-judgement and a wish to encounter truth – all of which is a part of my journey and longing to see beyond appearances, so that one may unveil the lack of light to bring forth the essence of love through life. My wish is to heal the healers of this world, to mend broken lives and to share the abundance of love through words from our Creator’s mind.

Gert Diedericks, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

KREATIV SA 2011

About the book

This book is a combination of poems, musings and pondering seeds I’d like to share with you. All is within the form if expression we call poetry; thus, many stories are imbedded within. Many of these stories are draped within my own inner being.

As part of the art of telling stories, we need to delve and have a real interest in those of whom the stories are told.

By having such an engrossed and dynamic relationship, we can then learn the true value of the rare and unique interdependency between souls, which one can say makes us all human.

The journey within minds of similar expression, or finding integration between the radiant beauty of different emotions, relationships, connections and energy, follows a fascinating path to discovery.

Poetry is not merely an art, limited to what we should comply to; much rather it is that which we can express with unlimited imagination, cognitive grasping and emotional flow of heart, in order to radiate a little of the light of the most magical soul living inside.

May you enjoy reading this compilation of thoughts as much as I have loved compiling them, by grace alone?

Gert Diedericks

November 18, 2011

Gert’s Dedication

My Creator and God, who granted me wisdom, insight and experiences during the course of my adventurous, yet blissful life.

All I am and can be belong to Him alone and I’m eternally grateful for his grand, graceful Hand of Love.

The Editor’s Words~ Myra Lochner

Poems that fuel Thoughts by Gert Diedericks, published by KREATIV SA,

The poetry of Gert Diedericks, poet-photographer of Johannesburg, South Africa, is in the genre I call reaction poetry: reason and emotion converged into highly philosophical reflections. According to Gert poetry “gives the opportunity to express one of my passions, namely to visualize love and freedom in a unique way.”

He demonstrates this statement in his compilation of poetry, when he explores in a joyous, yet orderly manner the different layers of being: a placement of the soul within creation and in relation to co-travellers in the realm called life. His poetry stresses the fact that “life is about choices”; that we do get the opportunity to direct our lives through our responses and reactions, following our experiences.

Although Gert is a free spirit, his work shows that he truly understands patterns of cosmic order and the way our Creator intended it to be discovered in love and compassion. Every poem of his in this book of 155 pages, fuels intense and deeply spiritual thoughts. None can say it in better words than the poet himself:

“I treasure understanding; the love for wisdom, a need for learning, respect to all humans through nonjudgmental and a wish to encounter truth, all of which is a part of my journey and longing to see beyond appearances, so that one may unveil the lack of Light to bring forth the essence of Love through life. My wish to heal the healers of this world, to mend broken lives; share the abundance of love through words from our Creator’s mind.”

The different sections of his book are illuminated by creative, interesting photography that, as his poetry, entices the reader by sheer perception to embark on a journey of inner discoveries, spiritual awareness and of personal growth. Of utmost importance to get to the core of Gert’s world and work, is allowing a connection between sight, sound, emotion and memory. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenging moods Gert displays throughout the book: it made me feel that he does not underestimate the intelligence of the reader.

Gert Diedericks writes with Light and of Light, and from a deep gratitude to be alive, and being able to lead readers to discover and rediscover the “enigmatic wonders of living”. His joy is almost tactile. He writes not only from a well of wisdom and insight gained by experience, but also as a kindred spirit, intuitively connected to the greatest of all writers, our almighty God and Author of the Book of Life.

Myra Lochner

KREATIV SA

GEORGE SOUTH AFRICA

February 6, 2013

MYRA LOCHNER

BESTURENDE DIREKTEUR/MANAGING DIRECTOR: KREATIV

SUID-AFRIKA SOUTH AFRICA

My review

It took me quite a while to give this elegant poetry book the attention it truly needed it came to a time when I was in need of these words to comfort my soul when I was dealing with a relationship/friendship that meant a lot to me and with understanding my own philosophy in life it was this book that opened my mind to the things beyond the natural. The book is based on the spiritual realm as the poet takes the reader onto a journey of his own inner turmoil and his own inner emotions to convey what was hidden deep within. Within him was laying a craft, words, art, that reflects not just his own life, but so many of us out there are sitting with life choices, regrets, what ifs, people we could have loved and people we didn’t give much attention too, losing someone either through passing onto the eternal life or losing someone because there season in your life had come to an end.

When I first started with the opening poem

Aha

Sometimes

Within the complexity

Of seeing,

One stumbles upon the simplicity

Of clarity.

Myra Lochner

The anthology is written over thirteen sections of philosophical verses that would pull you in if you have ever lost and trying to find yourself in a world that you’ve messed up and trying to get back to the YOU, you once been. The YOU that is the pure you and the version of who you have been portraying to the world.

Section Freedom Inspired

Poem – Friend

This poem I have a deep connection with how you can vision that one friend that you can just connect with on a level beyond a friendship more like a kindred spirit. Gert had really portrayed his emotions well in this poem. Which is one of my favourites?

Poem – Flakes in a dream

The dimensions we are carried through from one plane to another, finding our very own true self in a world that can be come very chaotic. Where our emotions needs a timeout. This is that kind of poem where you get to journey through different dimensions to find yourself.

Dare to Dream

The title says it all dare to dream of the goals you have once believed in, dare to dream about finding true love, dare to dream and just maybe you can let go of everything that keeps you behind in this life.

Just dream and let go…

Spring in your step

I love this poem, it gives me hope that nothing is impossible that there is always hope for a new love, for a new job, for anything that you think can’t be achieved.

I love the poet’s words here:

“Follow your heart with a spring in your step.

The love you yearn for is moments ahead:

Listen carefully and choose wise;

An old owl will give you advice.

The road may be rough; the road may be long,

Your spirit and will carry you strong.”

This is only a few and there is still many of this beautiful anthology that I have saved close to my heart because the words give me hope in a world lost in veil, as a poet myself and the fact that I have known Gert for quite sometime and have read most of his poetry on the website Allpoetry~ Gert Diedericks

That is where I have met this fine poet with his charming glances and words that spreads a multitude of love for anyone of any culture of gender. His words is inspirational, motivational his heart is pure and in doing so he creates the most outpouring soulful verses that had been read by many around the globe.

Gert is a South African, from Johannesburg, this was his first publication and he outdid himself with this anthology I know for sure there is still many publications in both his mother tongue Afrikaans and English that will be written. Be sure to contact Gert Diedericks at gert777@gmail.com if you would like to purchase a copy of his book.

Gert I truly came to understand what love and light and Namaste meant since I have met you, our conversations we have shared over the time period since we have met had always left me with new hope how you as a person and now also trusting literally mentor and friend that had always given my work the best reviews and this is my way of thanking you a dear poet and a beautiful soul that you have really helped me in areas of my own writing career, passing your knowledge of life onto me a young lady from Cape Town, South Africa.

Thank you to Myra Lochner also trusting friend and confidant of both Gert and myself and also our editor from KREATIV SA for the wonderful words about Gert’s book, “Poems that fuel thoughts”.

It's Finally Here

Breaking Dawn Part 2

I call it Epic.... with the ness.

Epicness is when you're watching something epic, and suddenly your body starts tingingling

It could be when you're watching a movie, or in a game when something awesome happens, or when your watching something and suddenly some epic music starts

 To describe something that is so amazing that no other word is able to describe its awesomeness.

Stephanie Meyer, has done the best possible way to let this dream become what it has, the characters in her book is feel good, the angst, the anticipation, the protoganist, the love triangle with Bella, Edward & Jacob has been the first taste of my turning point in this book/movie...since i was introduced to the first book Twilight in 2009, i read it and fell in love with almost every part of the story line.

 And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…What a stupid lamb. What a sick, masochistic lion. (Edward, Bella)

  “It’s not like love at first sight, really. It’s more like… gravity moves. When you see her, suddenly it’s not the earth holding you here anymore. She does. And nothing matters more than her. And you would do anything for her, be anything for her… You become whatever she needs you to be, whether that’s a protector, or a lover, or a friend, or a brother.”

When Jacob said this it reminded me of my own triangle 2 years ago, how this person can make you feel, you would be anything they want you to be...

 “All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings of a bunch of balloons. Everything that made me who I was - my love for the dead girl upstairs, my love for my father, my loyalty to my new pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self - disconnected from me in that second - snip, snip, snip - and floated up into space.”

I love the depth of Jacob Black's quotes, the way he has been in love with Bella from the start and how he just wanted her to take a chance on him, just to see what is there besides Edward...

Edward is any girls hero, his got good looks have this unique voice with a soft whisper out of old Noir Film, and that is what Bella fell in love with..
The epic love story of Twilight is coming to an end, the romance, the love triangle finally ending and finding who she is and what she always wanted Edward.

 “But it's possible to love more than one person at a time, Bella. I've seen it in action.”

  “He was right – she was beating herself up about hurting his feelings. The girl was a classic martyr. She’d totally been born in the wrong century. She should have lived back when she could have gotten herself fed to some lions for a good cause.”

 This is entire series is about falling in love, teenage first loves, crushes, triangle, but in all it comes down to this, can true love over come even the supernatural, the things that is beyond our imagination, pouring out a love like this its something that will live on with me, because I can relate to the things happening in this series besides the vampires, if you look beyond who they are it is that love has no boundaries, we can love whoever we want too...shape, size,race, gender should not matter, because the heart wants what it wants...
I would say go watch this movie on the 16 November 2012. I waited a whole year for this finale and it is going to be epic....

My First Book Edition

Today my first ebook was published through lulu.com http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/fallenwingz.
The book is about unrequited love.  A heartbroken girls letters to her former lover entrusting her heart in these letters. When I started this project over a year ago I was mainly writing not just to my soulmate, but to many others out there who's been in love and lost there first love.

My Unrequited Love Letters

By Chimnese Davids

eBook (ePub for Adobe Digital Editions)

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Price: $3.75

Download immediately.

This book is about unrequited love. A heartbroken girl's letters to her former lover, entrusting her heart in these words. When I started this project over a year ago, I was mainly writing not just to my soul mate, but to hopefully someone else will come across it who felt the same pain I have.

Available in ePub for Adobe Digital Editions Format

What's the difference between formats?

Book Review on "Trauma Alert” By Radclyffe

Book Review

Title: Trauma Alert

A first Responders novel

Author: Radclyffe

About the author Radclyffe has published over thirty five romance and romantic intrigue novels, dozens of short stories, and writing as L.L Raand a paranormal romance series, The Midnight Hunters.

Onto My Review

Trauma Alert is one of my first books I have read of the famous author Radclyffe. The intriguing love- romantic story takes mostly place in the Emergency Room.

The lead characters are Ali and Beau, to amazingly attractive woman with two different outcomes of relationships. One keeps her heart to herself in part of not getting hurt or feeling like she might loose the other. The other one sitting with a secret where she has made used of never falling for someone and not be able to put any emotion into a relation she has with woman.

Ali is a Surgeon and Beau is fire fighter. Equally strong females with a lack of not giving there hearts that easily. There past keeps them from wanting something everlasting, but it was until these two’s paths constantly got brought together with the jobs they do.

When Ali as tough as a nail met the striking and beautiful cocky and rebellious, drop-dead beautiful Beau Cross, the mutual attraction hits of but so is the mutual annoyance. 

When Beau asked Ali out on the first night they met and Ali turned her down, Beau couldn’t find it in herself why she couldn’t get this girl to have only one no strings attached date with her.

Beau’s partner bets her that she won’t be able to get even a date with the beautiful doctor. Beau accepts the bet than later Bobby knows how much the doctor has gotten under her skin.

Beau cockily tells Ali that they won’t have sex until after the sixth date, which is fine with Ali since she has no intention of dating the fire-fighter even once.

Every time Ali saying no which in fact Wynter, Ali’s confidant and also trusting friend and colleague later urges Ali to at least say yes once just for the sake of it.

Ali has a past she never revealed not even to Wynter. Later as the story develops she finally opens up about her sister and her need of never letting anything like that happen to someone she knows. And with Beau being a fire fighter a dare devil who’s constantly puts her life in danger is the one thing that Ali can’t deal with in the start. She has had relationships with woman that always ended up on the wrong side. They were all rebellious in there own nature. The only thing stopping Ali was that her sister died and she has never forgiven herself for being the reason her sister left that night and finding her death was the only thing that kept her from wanting to love someone that much again.

Beau Cross also sits with a deep secret and also her caring nature being protective over her sister and the ones she loves. Her battle of cancer and her having to end her career as a basket ball player.

Both are emotionally wounded characters who are unwilling to open their hearts to anyone, and that’s where the true conflict surfaces.

I can imagine both being in the medical field watching the trauma and horrors they live through each day could cause them not to open up easily. So it’s quite believable that a trauma surgeon and fire fighter would have immense trouble letting each other get close.

The problems may be typical such as incorrect assumptions (Beau thinking Ali called her Captain & Ali seeing Beau with another woman) and failure to communicate that keep the romantic contagonist at odds.

However it’s more effective when it’s understandable why they don’t ask the questions they need to ask and why it’s such a struggle to overcome stubbornness, fear, and hubris, therefore allowing one self to be vulnerable.

So the plot of the story doesn’t give you that instant bliss where the two characters falls in love and they live happily ever after, no it takes you through many twits and turns before it climax towards that. That is what I love about this novel.

It has two strong females, but each one lives with a deep painful secret each character hides, I couldn’t get enough of this book. I’ve read it the first time as the emotions it instilled me was overwhelmed.

The trauma room scenes and when Beau is on the job fighting to save people’s lives was so strongly written that you could feel each emotion and thought she has felt as she was out in the field.

These specific scenes also show you how risky it must be to fall in love with someone who has a job as dangerous as Beau’s.

When reading romance novels the most important things are for the reader is to feel sense of chemistry between the characters, and for the reader to want them to be together. I remember sitting on the edge of my chair as these two characters seems so perfect for each other, the chemistry was perfect.

Ali calls Beau “a walking orgasm”, who can deny blue eyes and blonde stricken woman.

Second the reader would sense how both their characters are meant for each other due to there pain and their similar personalities makes these characters right for each other.

Readers are going to love this series if it’s anything like Trauma Alert. This book is hard to put down and it will sizzle in the reader’s hands. I admit it happened to me over and over couldn’t put this book down.

The characters are hot, the sex scenes explicit and explosive and the book is moved along by an interesting plot with well drawn secondary characters, both of whom resist and fall head over heels.

Step Into My Shoes: Expressions from the LGBTQ Community

This is one of the very first anthologies my work will be showcased in.

NEW BOOK BY JAFANSTA LETS READERS STEP INTO RAINBOW SHOES FROM AROUND THE WORLD:

Straight Allies and LGBTQ Persons Collaborate to Reveal Intimate Feelings through Creative Expressions in Anthology

 

 

(Wixom, MI, May 1, 2011) -- Tonja Dudley Bagwell has compiled and edited poetry, letters, narratives, essays, quotes, and articles from LGBTQ populations and their allies from around the world. These creative and intimate revelations fill the pages of a soon-to-be-released anthology, Step Into My Shoes: Expressions from the LGBTQ Community, that invite readers to step into the shoes of a LGBTQ person and ponder their plight.

 

The anthology is filled with poignant and thought-provoking titles such as, Does It Matter Who I Love?, Gay Man’s Prayer, Opening That Closet Door, My Son is Gay and I’m Proud of Him, and I Didn’t Know My Prince Charming was Gay. Many of the writers and poets who contributed to the anthology are authors of their own books and have blogs and websites that showcase their literary talents.

In his foreword, PFLAG National President, Rabbi David Horowitz declares, "Those who read this anthology will find it a source of strength as well as literary delight."

 

As a PFLAG Straight for Equality pledger, Tonja was courageous enough to put forth an effort to be an advocate of the gay community with the hopes that other heterosexuals would consider becoming an ally. The powerful words in this anthology may comfort, guide and help bullied and suicidal youth who need to know they can garner compassion from many sources.

 

Tonja has friends and family from a diverse blend of ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations. She has observed, experienced, and listened to stories about discrimination, brutality, and even murder. No one should be tormented, assaulted, deprived, or killed because of their race, religion, gender, or sexual preference. When men speak up and crusade for women, Whites speak up and crusade for Blacks, and heterosexuals speak up and crusade for homosexuals, humanity may evolve to realize that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was right when he said, “…all men are created equal.”

 

Step Into My Shoes: Expressions from the LGBTQ Community is an anthology edited by Tonja Dudley Bagwell and published by Jafansta, Inc. The anthology will be available at a 20% savings off the regular price until May 20, 2011. It can be purchased online at www.jafansta.com/StepIntoMyShoes_LGBTQ_Anthology.aspx and will be available at various bookstores.

 

  

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garde

“Annie on My Mind” by Nancy Garden

“Liza never knew that falling in love could be so wonderful…and yet so confusing.”

This is my review on the book “Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden.” I have heard about this book by many people on the website I have been doing most of my short stories. I belong to these LGBT groups and I have learnt so much by just asking questions and also getting good literature from fellow writers.

A week ago I finally got this book and with just the opening line I was caught into this book, at the same time I was reading this novel I was also questioning my own dilemma on this topic that I myself or struggling with these same feelings this girls in the book. The writer takes you deep into the minds of these girls.

First I want to give a description on our main two characters of the book.

Liza Winthrop – the protagonist and narrator of the novel, Eliza is a 17 year old girl living in the upper scale neighbourhood of Brooklyn heights. She attends Foster Academy, a private school nearby, which is facing financial trouble.

Annie Kenyon – Annie also 17, lives far uptown in a shabby neighbourhood. She lives with her father and his mother, both Italian immigrants, and her mother. She hopes to attend the University of California in Berkeley to pursue her singing career.

Their story is our story, so many young girls and boys struggling with the confusion of there own feelings. To deal with just your inner emotions, trying to fit into a world where you know, you aren’t like another girl or boy.

As for instance I would look at myself, I am not girly, I am not one to make up my face with make up and lipsticks, I am plain, simple and down to earth. That is what Liza describes in one chapter about her hair; she isn’t one to do things with it. But what does our outside exterior got to do with what we feel inside. Nothing. We are all humans, and it’s hard enough to deal with your own emotions when you fall in love with the same sex, when the society wants to stone you just because you are different. How many young people struggling to come out. To be set free and live there lives as they want. We not hurting anyone, we don’t bother anyone yet people find ways to become ignorant into judging who we love. Love is love no matter who we are in love with. Why can’t LGBT be happy, they deserve it right? Why do you get human rights when they don’t have a right to be who they are? To love who they want to love.

This is what Liza & Annie had to deal with. They fell in love and yet the society wants to control there minds into thinking its wrong.

The teachers especially Ms Baxter and Mrs Poindexter almost gave me heart attack with there constant bashing of what they think being gay means. They make it sound so awful, when all along it is so beautiful. I have never seen a more beautiful way of falling in love then between two women. There love for each other. If I look at an example with in the book it would be Ms Stevenson & Ms Widmer. I wish there were more role models like them in this world. Two people who really understood what the two girls were going thought.

“The only thing that seemed truly real to me was the one thought that wouldn’t let go in my mind: It’s Annie and me they’re all sitting around here like cardboard people judging; it’s Annie and me. And what we did that they think is wrong, when you pare it all down, was fall in love.”

The girl’s friendship grew close as they spend more time together until; Annie admits that she has thought that she may be gay. Liza soon realizes that although she has always considered herself different, she has not considered her sexual orientation until falling in love with Annie.

When two teachers, who also live together go on vacation, Liza volunteers to take care of there cats. It was during this time that the friendship between the girls starts to develop into something more then friendship.

In unexpected events another teacher/administrator of Foster Academy came down on the girls catching them in a very peculiar way.

It was that night that not just the relationship between Liza and Annie came out, but also the relationship between the two teachers, Ms Stevenson and Ms Widmer has come out.

Ms Baxter being curious about the two teachers for quite sometime finally she had to take matters into her own hands, and report the incident to the headmistress of Foster Academy.

Liza was forced to come out to her parents, while Annie wasn’t yet ready to tell hers.

It also changed the lives of the two teachers who had nothing to do with the whole issue.

I understand the reason why Ms Stevenson was upset with Liza, she entrusted her home to her, and while they were gone she overused that trust. She took the teachers home to her own advantage, knowing it’s wrong. I would have felt the exact same way. What I like about the teachers they knew exactly what it must feel like, seeing as they have been there themselves. Sneaking around not getting caught because your family and friends don’t approve of what you are.

I like the explanation Ms Widmer gave the girls.

“We should tell them Isabelle,” she said “about when we were kids.”

“When we were kids.”  Said Ms Stevenson.

 “And our parents found out about us, well, suspected they told us we could never see each other again.”

“Yes well of course we did anyway,” said Ms Widmer.

“We did a lot of sneaking around, for more than a year- it was rather horrible. And we got caught a few times- once almost the way you two did, as Kah very rightly reminded me when I was to angry to remind myself.”

“So we know what it feels like,” said Ms Widmer.

“How dirty it makes you feel at a time when you want to feel wonderful and do feel wonderful, new and pure full of love, and full of life.”

“Look. I can’t lie to you and say that losing our jobs like this is easy. It isn’t. But the point is that it’ll be okay; well be okay. And we want to know that you will be okay.”

“The important thing is that we got through that time, too, and were still together.”

“I should tell you, that Ms Widmer almost left me after my discharge. She went through hell than I did, Liza because she blamed herself for writing those letters to me – even though I was the one who’d left them around. She kept thinking that if she hadn’t written them…”
“If I haven’t been gay,” said Ms Widmer.

“Then nothing would have happened. No court marital, no discharge..

It took me a couple of years to realize, that it wasn’t my fault, that it wasn’t my homosexuality that gotten Ms Stevenson discharged, it was what people wrongly made of it.”

“I think I had to accept I was gay before I could realize that it wasn’t my fault about the discharge. That’s why I like that quote so much, the one about the truth making one free. It does, you know, whatever that truth is.”

“If you two remember nothing else from all this, remember that. Please. Don’t- don’t punish yourselves for people’s ignorant reactions to what we all are. Don’t let ignorance win, let love.”

The book is framed on the thoughts one what Liza as she attempts to write a letter to Annie in response into the many letters Annie wrote her, but all through out, is also her telling herself what happened and remembering what she or they have been through. Right at the end she picks up the courage and called Annie.

“Annie Ms Widmer was right. Remember – about the truth making one free. Annie- im free now. I love you.

I love you so much.”

And in a whisper: “I love you too, Liza. I love you too!”

trust you find this version of my own review of the book well interested. Do please read it, its a lovely novel and i would give it 10 stars.

My Book Review on “Keeping You A Secret” by Julie Anne Peters

Keeping You A Secret has the sub title saying: Is it worth falling in love if you have to keep it a secret?

I have heard a lot of people raving about this book and it took me a year later to actually order this book online. I wanted to know the secret, why is it a secret until I opened the first page and got stuck to what I read, “ IMRU”.
I haven’t read much lesbian stories, but this isn’t just a normal love story, it’s a story based on two teenage girls and there teen world. Holland being the protagonist is the top student of the school, she is the Student President.
In some way she is the popular girl, she is the socialite of her peers, so many people look up to her.

What most don’t know she is fighting a battle within herself, and that battle only got discovered when a girl name Cece, came to her school.

As I quote online reviews of the book titled, Keeping You A Secret.

“Not just a gay love story, this book transcends barriers, allowing readers of all persuasions to level in its universal truths about self- knowledge, acceptance, pride, and the hardships of wrestling with the perceptions and comfort of others…”

“Keeping You A Secret will give you an updated look at the pressures, emotions and fears that today’s teenagers face while trying to make sense of their own identities. The love story is a joyful one, though marked by pain inflicted by the outside world….the main characters are appropriately complex and convincing, and even the most likable do some unlikable things. A lesbian love story, a self- discovery narrative and a tale of two struggles.”

I read “Keeping You A Secret” in one day, I couldn’t stop reading it because I felt like this was my life; this is what I am currently experiencing. Feeling that you never felt before comes to the surface. When I met my girl friend I was dating a boy, who I have been on and off with for two years. It was that feelings that would do flip flops and making flutters in the pit off your stomach.
When I came out trying to accept this new life, this new identity. It wasn’t easy, it was confusing. There are so many things you think about. I keep saying no I am not, I don’t like girls. That isn’t who I am supposed to be. I am supposed to follow the plan, meet a boy, and fall in love and have 2, 5 kids. Buy a house, marriage that is what is expected, that is what all our parents want doesn’t it.

I remember laying in my room, crying myself to sleep, I keep saying I want to be me, just let me be normal, yet I can’t be normal what is normal really.
I thought about everything as I was in that room. I was thinking about my world, my family, my parents, my friends, I was thinking about all this other people. How fitting my new lifestyle would be to them.
I didn’t want to lose them. Its has been a year since, I am still in the closet. Too afraid to be rejected.

It has been a painful struggle; the mere thought you are always weary on what is going around you. Would they know I am gay, will my friends not hug me when they find out, and will they act differently around me. It might have been one of the biggest challenges to finally admit to myself that I am a lesbian, but the worst part of being one was the fact I feel alone and lost most of the time.

How I envy Cece in this book, how openly and proud she is to be herself and not to pretend, to cover up almost everything.

Through all this turmoil of my identity, I met a girl. The first time we spoke on the phone I was falling for her. It was that instant attraction, like how can this person do this, where no boy has ever made me feel. Gosh I love her, I still do, we have been dating for a year and a month now and the thing that holds me back is the fact I can’t tell my friends or my family. I want to shout out and say I love her so much, this is my soul mate. I just want to be with her in every way, I hate living with this secret, its weighing me down, because I want to let my secret out.

Why don’t parents understand us? Why can’t they let us live our own lives?
My dad disowned me, but not because I am gay, he disowned me because I didn’t want to accept him in my life. My dad abandon me when I was a few months old, I was raised by my mother and my grandparents who both died, that was a tough period for me as I became a different person. I became rebellious, questioning myself.

He was in my life but not regularly, he was a drinker and would blame me on several accounts about his life being screwed up, about having me, that I was a mistake. The only man that should’ve taken care of me couldn’t do that. He rather blames me for faults he has done as a father. When it came to school and activities he wanted to take credit for everything, he even applied me to a college to study for something I didn’t want to excel in. It was his dream and not mine. In “Keeping You A Secret”, it’s Holland and her mother going through this, whereas her mother wants to live vicariously through her achievements and not what she wanted. At the end Holland’s mom lost a daughter because of being homophobic, but why don’t people see that we just want to be happy? We don’t stand in there paths, but it’s easy for them to do that to.
So many of us, still in the closet hiding because we fear that we will end up losing everything just like Holland, she lost everything she knew, but she was strong, she chose happiness. They say love trumps fear. What about us scares our parents, our friends and the world? Do we stand in there paths, keeping them from being happy. Do they even consider us at all?

When someone ask me once, how do I feel, what is it like to. I just said she’s the one I wished for.

I am going to take a text out of the book, “Keeping You A Secret, by Julie Anne Peters.”

“I love her, I love her so much. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. We are connected, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Its like she is inside of me.”

That is what my love is like for my girl friend, she is the air I breath and the arms that holds me when days are unkind to me, she is always their.

The love story between Holland & Cece, is one of the most inspirational yet heart wrenching and powerful relationship I have ever experienced, and I know many of us feel that way about our first true love, that girl that makes your heart goes tud, tud tud…it just want to explode as you try to calm yourself down, most times I get to stutter when I am in her presence that my face turns red and on fire.

Every page had me in this book, every feeling, every emotion and inner chats Holland had with herself, and how she would just want to be around Cece, no matter where are who is looking she didn’t care. She just wanted to be with her, but Keeping it a secret was the only thing that she couldn’t face, she wanted to shout it out on the rooftops the highest mountain I AM IN LOVE, AND PROUD TO BE ME.

As I come to the ending to this review, I would suggest you read the book, whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, and bicurious. Read it, if we could get a lot of straight young people to read this book it could change so many lives and people’s view on being gay.

It’s a sickness in this world how LGBT teens gets treated at schools all around the world. Not too long ago I college in Cape Town, South Africa, had this petition with a pink closet set in the foyer of the institution, it was like a riot going under where students of the GSA was injured and name bashing, the closet was also burnt down.

How can we change the world? How can we safe our fellow brothers and sisters from not taking their own lives, from keeping their true identity a secret, also how can I one day come out and tell the people in my world that I am a lesbian.

I am more me now since I accepted who I am, by reading this book it proofs to me I am not alone in this. That there are places to go and seek help. You aren’t alone; I now know I am not.

I want to thank the author Julie Anne Peters for her beautiful ability through writing, to bring such an amazing book like, “ Keeping You A Secret” out in our midst. She is an amazing writer and all her books is a must read.

I signed of with this. Losing your heart’s desire is tragic, but gaining your heart’s desire…it’s all you can hope for.