"Annie on My Mind" is a love story between two high school girls from New York - two very different people, but still very similar.
Eliza Winthrop is 17, lives in Brooklyn Heights and goes to Foster Academy, an uptight private school. She studies hard to be able to attend MIT and become an architect.
Annie Kenyon comes from a rather different background - she lives with her mother and father (a bookkeeper and a cab driver, respectively) and her paternal grandmother in a shabby apartment, and goes to a public school.
When Eliza and Annie meet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they quickly become friends, and after that, they become even more. Eliza always knew she was different, she just wasn't really sure how, but Annie had been thinking about it, and finally told Eliza about her homosexuality.
The girls always are looking for a way to be together, but with their separate schools and families interfering, they don't have many opportunities. So when their teachers Ms. Stevenson and Ms. Widmer, who are supposedly just "roommates," need a housesitter, Eliza offers to do it for them. Eliza realizes what an amazing chance she has in front of her for her and Annie to have some privacy.
They go there every day, and pretend as though it is their house, eating and making themselves at home.
But when Annie and Eliza think that they're alone, they get an unexpected visitor at the wrong time.
This novel about young love, friendship and standing up for your rights is heartwarming and beautiful, and will stay with you for awhile after you finish it. It kept me up at night flipping the pages to see how it would end. The story unfolds very cleverly, and definitely will leave you hanging.
The book is written in the first person, with Eliza as the protagonist, but also with some fragments of letters she has written to Annie. I recommend this book for ages 11 and up, for some sexual content and romantic themes.
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