Pop Culture Library Review“A haven” and place of knowledge: The key role of libraries and librarians in “Gay the Pray Away”
“Valerie Danners is in a cult. She just doesn’t know it yet. But when she stumbles upon a queer romance novel at the library, everything about her life—centered around a fundamentalist Christian homeschooling group —is thrown into question.”- Book’s official description on Penguin Random House, to give an example of what got me into this book.
Last year, I noted that I purchased a book during a sale of Pride-themed books on Bookshop and came across a book by Natalie Naudus entitled Gay the Pray Away. One of the key protagonists of this novel, Valerie Danners comes across a queer romance novel at the local library and begins, plus her coming across a new girl in town named Riley, that turns her world upside down. In my post the, I noted that libraries and knowledge are key to the book, with librarians supportive of her learning more about queer people, likely even letting her take the aforementioned queer romance book with her, and pointing out, how at one point, her restrictive parents do not allow her to go to the library. Their reasoning is simple: they know that the information there goes against the teachings of the Christian fundamentalist cult she is a part of. In this post I’ll expand on that and talk about more of the themes in this queer young adult romance novel and connect it to my previous posts.
Libraries and knowledge are key to this book even from the first chapter. Valerie, who is half-Asian/multiracial/biracial is performing and acting like she is a reactionary bible-thumper like her parents, who have been pulled into a misogynistic cult (she doesn’t realize the extent of this at the time) led by a White man. She goes to the library, despite her “friend” Hannah telling her that she can use the approved Bible encyclopedia (which only allows people to see certain information) but she resists the words of her “friend.” She later convinces her parents, with her mom from Taiwan and her dad a White man from the U.S., to bring her to the library, which she calls a quiet “haven” (see page 16) so she can do “some research” for her school paper, claiming she wants to read a Sean Hannity book (a lie). She acts like she is going there to do research but she actually wants to go to the young adult section, so she can lose herself in fantasy. She explains how she was once at a protest against a book deemed “sinful” with her mother, and how she lives to read, with what she says on page 17 making clear what’s she going through:
Every change I get, I’m tucked in my closet, devouring anything [to read] I can get my hands on. My life and world feel so small and strict and cold. I see the same people all the time who believe the same things, dress the same, talk the same, look the same. But books? Books are my escape.
She soon comes across a book by queer non-binary romance novelist Casey McQuiston, named One Last Stop, flips/zooms through it when her mom isn’t looking, calling it a “forbidden” book (since it is gay), but says it looks “pretty and joyful,” and steals the book, tucking it into her skirt. A librarian, a White man with glasses, accidentally crashes his book cart into a shelf, and while she thinks she will get caught as the alarm goes off, the librarian says it isn’t an issue, adding that their system is buggy and tells her to have a nice day. She places the book she had into the bottom of her backpack while in the bathroom, and lies to her mom about what happened. Going forward, it is an open question as to whether the librarian knew she had the book or not, which is something open to interpretation.
Going into the second chapter, she hides the book so she can hide this “contraband,” while putting on a good face, and kept in this sort of prison, even thinking that her brother David is a sort of ally (I’ll get to that later too). It is interesting that she sees her closet as a place where she is safe (likely inferring to the closet that queer people find themselves in before coming out) and it is where she rips off the cover of the book, throws it in the toilet, and adds a post-it note to it, if it is found. This paranoia is part of her daily life, where she is being watched and controlled, with her parents limiting information (there’s no Wi-Fi and the her brother’s bedroom was removed), she hides this book behind others, so it can’t be found, and her brother watches pirated anime, as she knows full well.
With all of this, it is no surprise that she hates the “approved” books about motherhood and being a “godly woman,” because who would like those books? She sees fantasy as a way of escape and reads One Last Stop all night learning about words like queer and bisexual (one reviewer noted that she is implied as bisexual) and sees the world of gay and queer people as joyful, warm, and fun. This contrasts with the controlling attitude of her mother and father which is abusive in more ways than one. While it is a while before she returns to the library or talks about the “secret stolen book” (One Last Stop) as she briefly calls it in Chapter 4, she does come across one more person who changes her life: a girl her age named Riley. She instantly falls for her, with Riley helping break the mindset which is holding her in this terrible situation. The same goes for her talking to Mira (formerly Miriam) who shakes her mindset.
In fact, it isn’t until chapter 7 that the aforementioned book appears again, with Valerie noting she has been “reading, rereading, and re-rereading” the book, while smiling, and begging to ride her bike to the library herself, where she, goes in, as she puts on page 59, and continues on page 60, saying specifically:
“…the farthest corner, in the cubicle with the computer facing the wall and my seat facing the entrance, I get on the internet. With one eye on the entrance in case someone comes in, I start with L and read my way through articles on the GBTQIA and the +. I read articles by the Episcopalians…about homosexuality and the Bible, and how the conservative ideology I’ve been taught is not universally accepted…[later] I’m back at the library. I google every “dangerous liberal doctrine” I can remember being trashed in sermons and lectures…I read about feminism, intersectional feminism, Kimberle Crenshaw, and critical race theory.”
She goes onto note how her parents censor the home internet, review the search history she and her brother go through, and question them about sites they visit. She says she feels “drunk with the sheer power of knowledge” from the library, which she calls the “unregulated wilds.” As the chapter goes on, she comes across the same librarian as before, who wears a sweater, who encourages her to take a queer book, noting it has a “super discreet cover.” As the book goes on, Riley and Valerie “Val” get closer, with Riley helping puncture Val’s impression of the restrictive situation she is in, as she slowly realizes she is in a cult after all.
Sometime later, Val notes, on page 87, she gets lost in books in the library and even smells them, kisses Riley (they both kiss one another various times), and admits she “stole a book from the library” (page 112). The latter surprises Riley, who likely sees her as rebellious. Beyond more chapters showing the insidious of this cult and the forced male-female courting pushed onto boys and girls, she goes to the library over and over, saying she read “every gay book” she could find, whether about critical race theory, her rights, abortion, and more, while appearing submissive to her parents (page 126). She even gets a hidden message, through email, that Riley sent her, hidden within a chemistry paper, sending messages back and forth in the document (pages 140-141), while on the library computer. She continues doing this, while she claims she is studying (page 157), delivers books to Mrs. Miller from her mom.
The library serves as a place Val can be free without parental permission, where she can be herself (see pages 168-170 for instance). She even creates a secret Instagram account where she sees a picture of another girl kissing her cousin, Mira, on the side of the face, and begins a correspondence with her, asking for her help. As noted in the rest of the chapter, she makes clear she is so paranoid that she wants to log into Instagram, delete her messages, even her account, noting wanting the wrong people to find it. However, she doesn’t do that and meets with Mira, telling her what she is going through, allowing them to connect. The library serves as a place of acceptance in contrast to the strict, domineering nature of “home.”
While Riley and Val bond more and their romance deepens, with Riley even coming over for a sleepover at Val’s house, everything goes downhill after David accidentally witnesses (see page 199) Riley and Val kiss and snitches on them, betraying Val, and causing her a world of hurt. He did not have to expose her like that, but it shows that no one in the family can be trusted, how the propaganda can get to anyone, even her brother, who watches pirated anime. It is later revealed, on pages 201 to 202 that her parents found her “queer books” and sketches Riley did of her, even though she had been so careful, believing she was right to be paranoid. Her email password is changed, she is banned from using the computer and the kicker: she is “not allowed to go to the library anymore” and they return her library books, while her secret stolen book (The One Stop) is literally burned on a grill, and set on fire.
Of course, this sends Val into a spiral and depression, with her parents prohibiting her from speaking to Riley. She lashes out at Hannah, understandably, who claims she has to repent and repeats the same cultish viewpoint, even willing to cut ties with Val, showing she has lost to the propaganda. She later gets money from Mrs. Batra, and goes to a bookshelf, where she hides the money in an old encyclopedia (pages 207-209), and she later lashes out at David, who claims he is questioning things, even though he turned her in. She also notes that when she snuck books from the library and googled the conservative canon, she realized how problematic the books she had were, how racist they were (pages 213-214). In a heartbreaking scene, after she turns down the arranged date between her and Andrew Patterson, she says, on page 216:
…Screaming in frustration, I throw myself into my closet and pull the accordion door shut. And there, in the dark, without a single friendly book to comfort me, I cry.
Chapter 28 is when the library gets to chine once more, with Val taking money from Mrs. Batra, and running to the library, going through the woods, and refusing to marry Andrew, no matter what, and is determined to contact Riley. She logs into the computer, but her parents changed her password, then creates another account, and desperately writes a message to Riley, but not Mira, as she doesn’t want her parents to find out (see page 219). She gets back just in time and no one is the wiser. Chapter 29 is the key chapter not because Val works for Mrs. Batra again, but because she goes to the library, or because she is nervous to talk to the librarian who helped her before (she thinks he has “more recommendations for queer books with discreet covers”), and she gets what she was hoping for (see page 225). There’s a message from Val, saying she will pick her up on February 1st, and Val responds she will be ready.
For the next two weeks she plays “by the rules,” takes her Bible study seriously, and everything else, to allay any suspicion. She is able to leave, despite her dad being furious at her, but her mother, unexpectedly is a bit of an ally of sorts, and she gets away. She gets her sort-of happily-ever-after with Riley, as they live together, even if money is tight, away from the cult-like atmosphere. Toward the end of the book, Val notes that she bikes to the local library, reads, and begins to write a bit (see pages 241-242), and her mom helps her get the documents she needs, while in her own way she is supportive.
In the final part of this book includes resources, a reading guide, and an interview with the author. In the second of these is a question noting that Val’s turning point is when she picks up One Last Stop from the library, and another asks what role the library played in Val’s “journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance” (pages 247-248). In the third of these parts of what constitutes the book’s appendix, Naudus notes that during her childhood, books and reading were a “huge escape” with her getting in trouble for reading when she was supposed to be praying, adding that seeing yourself in a story is “like looking into a mirror,” and notes her inspirations, what queer joy means to her, and more (see pages 249 to 253).
I’ve written about theft, acceptance, and library as a place of refuge time and again on this blog, even linking some of the above here. I like how the library is shown as not a neutral place, but instead a place of knowledge. It provides Val with the information she needs to learn more about her surroundings, about her world, away from restrictions imposed on her. This is why Kendra Winchester of Book Riot called, in a review back in June 2024, this book a “love letter to libraries and the freedom they represent for their patrons,” adding that “without the books she reads at the library, she might never have been able to imagine a different future for herself.”
The role of the library in spreading knowledge, even that which challenges orthodoxies, is why some have began book bans and even some have burned books they have hated, not wanting anyone else to have that knowledge. They find that knowledge is dangerous because it challenges their worldview. This is why it is so important to protect libraries, whether academic, special, public, or otherwise, from attack by governments, individuals, and groups.
© 2025-2026 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.
#abusiveRelationships #arson #AsianAmerican #bookBurning #books #Bookshop #censorship #Christianity #cults #family #GayThePrayAway #informationProvider #lateBooks #lesbians #LGBTQ #librariesAreContested #librariesAreNotNeutral #libraryAsRefuge #libraryProperty #maleLibrarians #misogyny #OneLastStop #propaganda #quiet #reading #religion #restrictions #socialMedia #TaiwanesePatrons #theft #WhiteMen #WiFi
The Shimmering Spectrum
Heather Cook🖖Autistic Coach
Grinning Cat 
🚫👑
Cody Sparks
Nat Oleander
IdeaSmith