Reviews

  • Booklist, American Library Association:

    Compellingly written…this should quickly become a mainstay resource for many family service agencies and public libraries serving LGBT patrons.

  • Publishers Weekly (2/16/04):

    Many people will find this a helpful book; its all-encompassing approach should draw in not only children of LGBT parents, but also friends and family, teachers, therapists and clergy who work with them.

  • Vanity Fair:

    Children of gay parents shoot from the hip in Abigail Garner’s indispensible Families Like Mine.

  • New York Times Magazine:

    Families Like Mine [is] a sort of Feminine Mystique about the children of gay parents, articulating their pride and their struggles with homophobia but also the grievances they have with their families.

  • Advocate Magazine:

    Smart and impassioned…This is the new essential reading for LGBT families.

  • Bitch Magazine:

    Savvy and thorough…a must-read for queer families and the people who love them, teach their children, or care about affecting the social change necessary to support them.

  • Lambda Book Report:

    Families Like Mine breaks unchartered territory.

  • Publishers Weekly (2/23/04):

    Garner offers humorous and often poignant insights not only into the joys and complexities of gay families, but the hardships the children in particular endure because of social resistance to their parents’ union.

  • Sun Sentinel:

    Abigail Garner’s thoughtful new book…brings issues to light which have long been ignored….Garner shows us that the children of gay and lesbian parents have much to contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the rights of gay parents.

  • Time Out New York:

    An instant classic…an enlightening, emotional read for everyone, gay or straight, parent or not.

  • In The Family Magazine:

    Many parents of younger children will be fascinated to hear what the first generation that came of age in openly LGBT households has to say about their experiences…Families Like Mine raises pertinent issues that will remain with us for a long time.

  • Rocky Mountain News:

    Families Like Mine is an important and timely book. Its contents may not be what people on either side of the gay parenting debate wish to hear – but that’s its great strength.

  • Out.com:

    Families Like Mine is a must-have for gay people thinking about raising children and for children of gay parents.

  • VOYA:

    In very readable prose, [Garner] examines growing up in a queer household from every angle. This book will perform also as a handbook for LGBT parents, and it would function as a support for teens in LGBT families, presenting them with true stories of teens who have been where they are now.

  • Midwest Book Review:

    This is a book that belongs in all libraries and should be read by school administrators, teachers, social workers, legislators, and parents (whether they are gay or not).

  • OutSmart Magazine:

    Amazingly, Garner makes palatable the idea that our families are different and our kids do struggle but, perhaps, not in the ways we might think they do…[she] invites courageous gay parents to read the book and get an insider’s look at what it’s like to grow up with GLBT parents.

  • New York Blade:

    Simply learning about the breadth of gay families is valuable to educators, parents, children and queer people, to create a wider vision of exactly who our far-flung community embraces. …Garner’s book doesn’t present a simple, easy answer, but then again, whose family is simple and easy?

  • The Cleveland Plain Dealer:

    Perhaps the highest praise a book such as this can receive is to be called honest.  And it is….Honesty makes this book a helpful resource for families and a tool for dialogue.

  • Washington Blade:

    [Garner’s] book not only gives [kids of LGBT parents] a voice, it provides a voluble account of their struggle….And considering the parade of gay families in the news recently, publisher HarperCollins couldn’t have calibrated a more ideal point of entry into the window of gay culture.

  • InsightOut Book Club:

    This important book touches on the lives of a growing segment of our community that has often felt isolated, been overlooked, and not had a voice…until now.

  • Metro Weekly (Washington, DC):

    Garner’s call for a ‘verbal revolution’ is well thought out and deeply stirring, and the discussion of the stigma a heterosexually-inclined child can feel in a queer household is an unexpected, but vital, area to explore.

  • Gay City News:

    [Garner] offers unique perspectives of straight children raised by LGBT parents and discovers new and valuable areas of inquiry for feminist and queer theorists.

  • Independent Gay Writer:

    Garner…tends to turn our assumptions about gay families upside down. In addition to some surprising issues that children of GLBT parents face as they themselves become adults, Garner also introduces some useful terms to add richness to our discussion of gay families.