Talk by Kathe Koje

Kit gets the lead in the school play, even though he's never acted before.  He's never even read a script, and isn't sure how to read it once he's handed his copy.  The female lead, Lindsay Walsh, is known as a self-centered prima-donna, but onstage their chemistry is brilliant.  However, the play is controversial and parents go to the school board to get it banned.  Kit, however, has bigger concerns: such as if or when he'll have 'the talk' with his parents to tell them he's gay, and how he'll ever get comfortable around the boys he has crushes on.  While the book attempts to tackle bigger themes like freedom of speech and gay rights, its primary success is in the understanding of one person's fear of being who he really is.  Carma, Kit's best friend, figured it out long before he told her and is very comfortable with his homosexuality.  But not everyone gets it, or is so understanding. 
The narrative moves between Kit and Lindsay, giving us first-person point of view from each of the play's main leads.  The play they are performing, Talk, serves as a common ground for the larger thematic elements Koja is tackling.  There is definitely language in the book that will make people uncomfortable, but on the whole it is language common to its subject-- any hate crime incident at any high school in America would likely encounter the same language, and it is certainly nothing high school students haven't heard.  This is a book club selection at my school next year, and it will likely incite some good discussion.