THE HOMECOMING WAR

A high school junior fights her attraction to the jock who could derail her postgraduation plans.

On the cusp of turning 16, Megan Williams is on a mission. Academic excellence guarantees she can escape her California town and the memories of her late father, whose ghost casts a shadow over her childhood home. Meg, whose father was white, lives with her Black mom and maternal grandmother; her older sister is away at college. Meg’s thrown for a loop when the district announces that her school, Hirono High, will be combined with its rival, Davies High. This decision means she could lose the junior class presidency, marring her otherwise impeccable track record. Enter Chris Chavez, who is cued Latine. He’s Davies’ handsome junior class president, a star baseball player, and an obstacle on Meg’s road to glory. When Chris refuses to resign, the pair must work together to keep the peace and defuse an escalating prank war. As Meg and Chris grow closer, Meg starts to wonder if her crush is a betrayal of her friendships, her leadership role, and herself. Told through Meg’s first-person narration, Woolridge’s debut YA novel touches on grief’s many forms and explores how loss changes family dynamics. Chris is an empathetic, thoughtful, pointedly nice guy, in contrast to Meg’s anxious, Type A personality, and their relationship is cute. The challenges keeping the couple apart are relatively minor, however, so the story fails to sustain tension.

A lighthearted if low-stakes romance.