Shy Girl

by Elizabeth Stark

Alta Corral is a distinctive character in contemporary fiction ... a young woman confident, even nonchalant, about her sexual conquests of other women. She works as a body piercer at a full-service tattoo parlor, rides a motorcycle, and has slept with every girl in San Francisco who is so inclined. But none can replace Sasha "Shy" Mallon, the next-door neighbor from her girlhood. As teenagers, they discovered themselves together; then Shy fled to Seattle and entered a relationship with a man. Now Shy has returned, pregnant, to be at her dying mother's bedside. Alta joins her there; and soon they are tending toward intimacy again, in a way that shakes up their notions of who they are, as well as opening up the secrets of their mothers' lives.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, Lesbian Fiction, Lesbian, LGBT

Hardcover

First published July 1, 1999

Reviews

[Devi Laskar · Rating 5 out of 5]

a profoundly beautiful novel.

[Rabbit {Paint me like one of your 19th century gothic heroines!} · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this was not erotica, it gets pretty damn close to it. It was pretty hot in the heavily implied sex scenes. It was just yum.



The writing was on point, the plot was dark and angst-filled but done the way I like it. I think every queer* girl has dated or been with a girl like Shy. I have. LOL



Alta is my fantasy of butch women come to life. Just *drools*



UNF! and it was really hard to find a decent butch picture on google. I need to find my stash of hot butch pictures.

I love how this is a femme/butch dynamic story, so I can get the best of both worlds here. LOL



Basically want angst and hot sex and have it well-written? Read this book.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. I thought the two main characters, Alta and Sasha aka Shy Girl, were believable and realistic. In fact, everything in this book is so real life, the suburbs, the parties in SF, the way the characters relate to each other. I enjoyed reading it and seeing everything in my imagination. But I didn't care too much about the plot line about Sasha's mother's big secret. It took a bit too long in the suspense building phase and became kind of boring, and then everything tied up the very end. I wanted to know more about the relationship between Alta & Sasha, and how and if they would get back together. It's not a storybook type story, but it depicts real life really well.

[Nerissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this one up at a library for about $0.25 or so, thinking it would be a fluffy little thing to read. It did only take me a day (a day of reading, that is) to finish it, but I was surprised at how much I liked it. The characters seemed real. And while it's my first "lesbian literature" foray, I thought it was pretty decent. Perhaps I was also drawn in by the San Fran setting, but who knows?

[Marjorie Elwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lesbian romance with several twists, I found the different names hard to follow and a little tedious at the beginning. The plot picked up, however, and the ending was touching, thought-provoking, and well-written.

[Chelsae May · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was good, but sometimes it was just so hard to follow what was happening in the book. She would go from present day to a memory and back again with no real transitions. I would have to reread parts to figure out what was going on.

[Katie Worthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually came across this book in my college library abandoned books pile! Literally beautiful. Just a heartfelt unrequited childhood friends-to-lovers novel. So poetic at times I found myself highlighting whole pages. The characters were super realistic, and I found myself relating to Alta myself. As a survivor of religeous trauma, seeing a queer character struggle and come to terms with themself in admist of a homophobic family lineage was so emotional. The erotica scenes were extremely raw and romantic, and truly highlighted the beauty of sapphic relationships. Had my jaw dropping at points!! Just really dissapointed Alta and Shy-girl didnt end up together at the end (frustrating!!). Definitely reccommend for anyone into cheesy queer lit!

[Jens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I found it by accident. Unfortunately, it is out of print with no eBook versions around. Though, The Internet Archive (archive.org) has readable scans.

This made me think of a phenomenon I observed with two more books recently. Last year I read Glass Houses by Ciaran Llachlan Leavitt. Published eventually in 2001, after evolving as so-called fan fiction over a longer time, it received good reviews. Most of them based on the pre-publication version on the internet. Besides being generally positive, most pointed out correctly that the internet version suffers from quite a few editing problems and that they hoped this would be addressed in the published book. The print version has become quite rare (a handful of used copies, starting at 100 USD) and there is no eBook available. I got my hands on a print copy and can confirm--the final version is properly edited and mostly error-free, a pity that it is not widely available.

Similarly, And Playing the Role of Herself by K.E. Lane: Evolved from fan fiction, out of print. An eBook version is available though, despite suffering from quite a few unfortunate editing problems, including a whole missing paragraph at the start of a chapter.

These three books have two things in common. (1) They stick out as solitaires, both by their literary quality and by being in principal the only major work by their authors. (2) They have become so obscure and hard to obtain, that almost nobody will ever read them nowadays. I wish I would know something to do about this.

[Christopher Hachet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well developed story line but it lags in both character development and plot about 3/4 through the novel. Still this, along with Annie on my mind, started me reading LGBTQ literature. I am straight, but lots of good literature/reading along those lines. I still really love the romance in the book, and how butch/strong/bold/independent Alta, the main character is.

[Rachael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poetic and beautiful writing at times. Hasn't been pulling me in, at least not yet.

I'm somewhat confused about the direction the story will take: coming of age or lost love. (as if they are really different)

conclusion: dealt with the past, with memories, with family and family history, and secrets around all of these. set partially in san francisco.

[Meryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty disappointed with how this book turned out. At first it was a great story, but to keep it simple, as the plot thickened it just got boring and maybe a little bit confusing. So that's about it. Yep.

[michelle]

11/29/06

[Dimps · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good read. Complex characters that keep you guessing.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the last third of the book. It presents a time that is past related to experiences and roles between and among lesbians.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

had some trouble getting into it but the plot was good

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

unmemorable