The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe

 This book, like Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey, and others, came out (no pun intended) at the local library during LGBTQ Appreciation Month. The books under this title celebrated and/or concerned people in this large community. The Knockout Queen is just one of those many books. I thought it was excellent. In a way, it sort of represents the massive homophobia that those who are gay face every day, especially in the days after that college student Matthew Shepard was tied to a fence and beaten nearly to death, only to die from his injuries because of one thing-he happened to be gay. People who are LGBTQ seem to often face hatred and discrimination based on who they love. I can say that anyone in the LGBTQ community is fine with me. I don't hate or judge; I can't. It's A.) not who I am and B.) hypocritical of me to think bad of anyone in the LGBTQ community when I listen to Elton John, who's gay, Judas Priest, whose front man Rob Halford is gay, David Bowie, who's bisexual, Queen, whose then front man Freddie Mercury is bisexual but current front man Adam Lambert is gay.

Summary

-North Shore. Modern day. North Shore is a small town just outside Los Angeles. It's one of those everyone-knows-everyone type towns. It's dominated by an oil factory and mostly industrial work. Bunny Lampert is the star player on her high school's volleyball team with Olympic dreams in mind. Her dad, Ray, is one the town's most successful real estate agents, though he has some skeletons in the closet and is a raging alcoholic. Her next door neighbor is Michael Hesketh, a teen struggling with his homosexuality who is caught smoking in her back yard one day. Rather than yell at him, they become fast friends. He even comes out to her and straight up tells her he's gay. They spend evenings watching RuPaul's Drag Race and become fast friends. Then one day, everything changes. A bullying classmate finds out something about Michael and spreads vicious gossip around the school. Bunny smashes the girl's head in and she's put into a medically-induced coma, only to later die. As Bunny is put in prison for manslaughter, Michael and Bunny drift apart until years later. They reconnect and discover that Bunny is a championship MMA fighter who's starting to suffer from memory problems after taking many hits to the head while Michael is working on a doctorate in evolution.