Francesca Lia Block has never shied away from tough subject matter: see her Dangerous Angels series for proof. LOVE IN THE TIME OF GLOBAL WARMING gets extra kudos for the title alone it promises to be provocative, especially when you see the author behind it. The main character is also an art history buff, so many scenes are described through paintings she loves. Love in the Time of Global Warming parallels Homer's The Odyssey pretty faithfully, and the teens even carry a copy of the book with them to read passages. There's mature language, including some uses of "f-k" in its variations, but it's not constant. In one of the only gory scenes, Pen stabs a giant in the eye and blinds him later, a character loses an eye, but it's not described. Now all of the characters' families are either killed in the Earth Shaker, fires, or floods or are missing or captured. Talk of the present brings us to the apocalypse. Talk of their past brings up issues of serious drug addiction, family cruelty, and painful searches for identity. One character trades sex for freedom, but the sex isn't described. There's a sexual relationship between two characters that includes descriptions of nakedness and mutual masturbation. Most notably, the four main characters are lesbian, gay, or transgender (LGBTQ) teens, one having had a sex-change operation. Parents need to know that mature themes abound in Love in the Time of Global Warming, a literary romantic fantasy marketed at mature teen readers.
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