One of the challenges of finding a queer community is not only connecting with your people, but also unearthing your history. Queer people have always existed, but our existence has been covered up and buried. It can feel like we have no history, which is alienating. All Out is a much-needed book, because it locates queer people (teens in particular) through time. It is also optimistic historical fiction. It imagines not only queer teens in the past, but how they might have found happiness there. It rejects the idea that queer people don’t have a history–or that if they do, it is fundamentally tragic.
Although all the stories are historical fiction, they do sometimes play with genre by including magical realism, fantastical elements, or fairy tale retellings. There are trans, gay, lesbian, asexual, and aromantic characters. (I can’t remember bi characters? But I may have missed that.) There are a lot of different time periods (~1200s-1999) and cultures involved, although I would have liked to see more stories set outside of North America and Europe.
The story that really stood out to me was Malinda Lo’s. It’s about a Chinese girl in San Francisco in the 50s, and the male impersonator she has a crush on. It incorporates race, sexism, space exploration, the Chinese immigrant experience, and lesbian pulp fiction–all in such a short space! I really loved that story, and maybe it’s unfair to want a short story to be a novel, but… I do. Luckily, I think we might be getting it! There’s definitely enough here to flesh out, so I’m eager to get my hands on the novel version.
That’s my favourite, but I really enjoyed most of the stories. Dahlia Adler’s contribution that features two girls coming out to each other at Kurt Cobain’s vigil was another memorable one, and you really can’t go wrong with a story about two girls sailing off into the sunset together. (Well, you could, but they didn’t.) There are fun, captivating stories that make the world feel a little more open and inviting, so I have to give this 5 stars.
