Krista and her friends Carrie, Brandon, Ryan, Nick, and Aeleise (in varying combinations throughout the book) have access to plenty of booze when they want it they try cocaine and ecstasy they play football, they re cheerleaders, they attend the homecoming dance as well as bible study groups some are victims of incest and rape, while others carefully choose when they will lose their virginity and to whom they have co-ed sleepovers where they kiss and sometimes have sex with each other they shop a lot and, since this is Southern California, they also go surfing.

The characters delve into drugs, drinking, and sex just as zealously and carelessly as teenagers do in real life, and they careen into the wall of consequences just as hard. It is unflinching in its accurate depiction of the curious lust for experience that is basically synonymous with being a teenager. Torn is a brave and memorable achievement in teen fiction. In fact, if I could have read this book when I was 14 (the age at which we meet the book s protagonist, Krista McKinley), I probably would have become addicted to this book and carried it with me wherever I went bisexuals let alone teenaged bisexuals get very few reliable toeholds in our society even today. If a bisexual coming-of-age novel like Torn had been written when I was coming of age in the mid-1970s, it would have gone a long way toward helping me feel sane. Torn is a 2009 Lambda Literary Award Finalist/Bisexual Fiction. REVIEW: Marilyn Jaye Lewis- Lambda Literary Foundation WINNER-2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards/GLBT categoryįINALIST-2010 Lambda Literary Award/Bisexual Fiction TORN is a Young Adult novel written for older teens (17+) and deals with high school students who are coping with issues of sexual orientation and finding themselves.I am currently working on a sequel to TORN. It was another 9 years before I decided to publish it.

TORN reflects the time period between high school and my early twenties. I would often take long breaks from writing it. It took me 5 years to complete the novel since I was caring for my grandmother at the time. As I grew older, more serious subjects began to steal my interest. I was born in sunny southern California and have lived there all my life. I have been reading and writing stories since I can remember. I loved book projects at school and this inspired me to continue making them at home. My early stories were fun and fanciful and full of fairies.

Torn by Amber Lehman