C. B. Lee

Last updated
C. B. Lee
C. B. Lee by Gage Skidmore.jpg
Lee in 2025
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Genre Young adult fiction
Years active2015-present
Notable worksNot Your Sidekick
Seven Tears at High Tide
Notable awardsRainbow Award 2015
Website
cb-lee.com

C. B. Lee is an American author of young adult literature based in Los Angeles, California. [1] They are best known for their Sidekick Squad series, which follows a quartet of teenagers in a near future world of superheroes and supervillains.

Contents

Profile

Lee's parents are immigrants from Vietnam and China. [2] Lee is bisexual [3] and open about their struggles with mental illness. [4] They have been featured in Teen Vogue , Hypable, and Wired Magazine for their novels. [5] Lee is represented by Thao Le of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. [5]

Selected works

Their debut young adult novel, Seven Tears at High Tide, about a boy who gets rescued and falls for a selkie, was published by Duet Books in 2015. It won the 2016 Rainbow Award for Bisexual Fantasy & Fantasy Romance in 2016 [6] and was a finalist for the 2016 Bisexual Book Award in the category Young Adult and Speculative Fiction. [7]

The first book in the Sidekick Squad series, Not Your Sidekick, was published by Duet Books in 2016. [8] It tells the story of Jess, a bisexual teen without superpowers living in a world where superpowers are normal, who has to compete with her town's infamous supervillain for her dream internship and deal with her crush on her friend Abby. [9] [10] Not Your Sidekick was a finalist for the 2017 Lambda Literary Award in the category LGBTQ Children's/Young Adult [11] and a finalist for the 2017 Bisexual Book Award in Speculative Fiction. [7] The second book, Not Your Villain, following the protagonists from the first novel who have now joined a resistance movement, was published by Duet Books in 2017. [12] A third book, Not Your Backup, was published in 2019. Lee cites the X-Men and wanting to write a story incorporating identity and alienation as inspiration for writing the series. [13]

Lee also contributed a short story to Saundra Mitchell's Out Now: Queer We Go Again!, published by Inkyard Press in 2020. [14]

Selected bibliography

Young Adult series

Sidekick Squad

  • Not Your Sidekick (Duet Books, 2016, ISBN   978-1-945053-03-0) [15]
  • Not Your Villain (Duet Books, 2017) [16]
  • Not Your Backup (Duet Books, 2019)
  • Not Your Hero (upcoming as of mid-2025 [17] )

Stand-alone young adult novels

Awards

YearAwardCategoryWorkResultRef
2016 Rainbow Awards Bisexual Fantasy & Fantasy RomanceSeven Tears at High TideWon [6]
Bisexual Book Awards Young Adult and Speculative FictionSeven Tears at High TideNominated [7]
2017 Lambda Literary Awards LGBTQ Children's/Young Adult Not Your SidekickNominated [11] [19]
Bisexual Book Awards Speculative FictionNot Your SidekickNominated [7]

References

  1. ↑ "C.B. Lee". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  2. ↑ "11 Authors Discuss Dealing with Depression, Being Mixed Race, and More on September's YA Open Mic". The B&N Teen Blog. 2016-09-01. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  3. ↑ "Interview: C.B. Lee & Rachel Davidson Leigh – YA Pride". www.gayya.org. 23 September 2016. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  4. ↑ "Redefining Super". Diversity in YA. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  5. 1 2 "About the Author". CB Lee. 2015-11-19. Retrieved 2020-04-30.
  6. 1 2 "2016 Rainbow Awards". www.elisarolle.com. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  7. 1 2 3 4 "Finalists & Winners". The Bi Writers Association. Archived from the original on 2018-04-30. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  8. ↑ "Children's Book Review: Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee. Duet, $16.99 trade paper (262p) ISBN 978-1-945053-03-0". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  9. ↑ "What's New in LGBTQIA+ YA September and October 2016". School Library Journal. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  10. ↑ "Kick off Bisexual Awareness Week with 12 2016 YA Books". The B&N Teen Blog. 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  11. 1 2 Team, Edit (2017-03-14). "29th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  12. ↑ Tesoro, Christina (2017-11-16). "'Not Your Villain' by C.B. Lee". Lambda Literary. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  13. ↑ "The Best Superheroes Right Now Aren't on Screens. They're in Books". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  14. ↑ "Rights Report: Week of September 24, 2018". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-11-26.
  15. ↑ Adler, Dahlia (2020-09-08). "13 Spectacular Young Adult Books From Independent Publishers". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  16. ↑ Brown, Alex (2024-09-16). "Backlist Bonanaza: 5 Underrated YA Books for Brat Summer". Reactor. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  17. ↑ CB Lee blog post on the writing of the book
  18. ↑ Robinson, Brianna (2021-08-21). "September 2021 New Book Releases: Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and the start of Fall". The Young Folks. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
  19. ↑ Johns, Wayne, ed. (2019-03-11), "Where Your Children Are", Every True Pleasure, University of North Carolina Press, pp. 181–191, doi:10.5149/northcarolina/9781469646800.003.0020, ISBN   978-1-4696-4680-0, S2CID   242533467
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