Alice Austen Lived Here

As my award committee work came to an end, I got very very excited about reading some backlist titles, plowing through a good book again, and reading a lot of the older books taking up space on my shelves that I swore I was “going to get too soon.” Enter: Alice Austen Lived Here by Alex Gino. I had read Gino’s other work, obviously, and I even had an ARC of Alice Austen….which makes it funny that I read that ARC over a year after publication, in the morning, in NYC, before going to see two shows.

Two nonbinary tweens living on Staten Island team up for a class project to recommend a statue of a Staten Island person to be erected outside city hall. They learn about and decide to focus on Alice Austen, a lesbian photograph who was born in 1866 and died in 1952. They research her, visit her historic house, argue with their teacher, come up with designs, etc. It’s a great idea for a book—tying it to the stuff that many do at school, but also helping them learn about a lesser-known woman in American History. I loved the scenes at the end where the winners were revealed, and appreciated the elements of queer friendship throughout, but this book didn’t soar like I wanted it to. The protagonist’s friendship and reliance on older people in their life felt too harped on, or at least done in a strange way, and I wanted more from the other aspects of the book.

This ended up being a quick, well-timed book for me (re: location when reading) and yet I just…eh. Gino’s writing just doesn’t flow like I want it to. I will definitely recommend this book to readers looking for more non-binary representation in books, and I love how it ties to curricular projects like History Day, Living Museums, etc, but….come on, Alex. Tune up the writing a bit, please! Writing for middle schoolers doesn’t mean you have to write so….boringly? It’s not that it’s boring, per see, but sentence by sentence is just bland.

I’ll read what Alex Gino does next, but I’ll maybe lower my expectations.