Gay the Pray Away

Valerie Danners has grown up in a fundamentalist religious community that leaves little space for questions about who she might become. Finding a queer book at the library opens a possibility she has never been encouraged to imagine. Then Riley enters her life, and curiosity develops into a relationship built through stolen moments, notes and first kisses. For Valerie, an Asian American teenager living under strict expectations, attraction cannot be separated from the risk of discovery. Loving Riley means considering a future that could place her at odds with her family and community. She must decide how to claim that future when the people defining her world insist that it should not exist.