A delightful nerd romance.
Viola Reyes is a gamer, a fangirl, and a feminist.
Vi plays tabletop games and massively multiplayer online role-playing games, and she obsessively watches the medieval fantasy TV show War of Thorns. She loves to spend time at Renaissance faires and fan conventions, where she can be herself. Unfortunately, male-dominated fandoms aren’t always welcoming to female-identifying and presenting people. More often than not, Vi is forced to defend herself and her right to exist in fandom circles. She plays as Cesario, a boy, in Twelfth Knight, her current MMORPG, so she can actually enjoy the game rather than battle constant harassment. Meanwhile, Jack “Duke” Orsino is student body president (Vi is the vice president) and high school football royalty. When he seriously injures his knee and is benched for the season, he starts playing Twelfth Knight, too—and DukeOrsino12 encounters Cesario. When the two begin chatting and teaming up within the game, Vi panics and pretends to be her twin brother, Sebastian. This engaging modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night has a genderbending plot that’s a perfect fit for contemporary readers. While some of the allusions will be a bit too on the nose for anyone familiar with the source material (and may make suspending disbelief difficult for some), the slow-burn enemies-to-lovers storyline (and the absence of Twelfth Night’s sinister subplot) more than carry this successful adaptation. Duke is Black, and Vi is cued Filipina. (This review was updated to correct a factual error.)
A delightful nerd romance. (dramatis personae) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: May 28, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884893
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Tor Teen
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters.
When star hockey player Alec Barczewski’s estranged childhood friend, Dani Collins, moves to town, they end up in a mutually beneficial fake-dating relationship that reignites old feelings.
Following her parents’ divorce, Dani and her mom move in with Dani’s hockey legend grandfather in Southview, Minnesota, where she spent a month every summer as a child and where her friendship with Alec grew. Between visits, the two were pen pals, but they eventually fell out of touch. Despite some tensions over their loss of friendship, the high school seniors reconnect. Desperate to get off Harvard’s waitlist, Dani needs another extracurricular activity, while Alec—whose reputation took a hit when a photo of him holding a bong appeared on social media—is eager to improve his tarnished image for NHL scouts. The pair strike a deal: They’ll fake date, making Alec look like a stable guy whose academically gifted girlfriend is related to hockey royalty, and in exchange, he’ll get Dani a team manager position that will catch the eye of Harvard’s admissions officers. Eventually, complicated feelings about their past, stressful family relationships, and their brewing romance boil over. Romance fans will love the deliciously tension-filled scenes between Alec and Dani, who are believable friends with heavy demands weighing on them. They feel like real teenagers, and readers will enjoy rooting for them as the well-paced story unfolds. Main characters present white.
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781665921268
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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