HOW TO LOVE YOU WHEN YOU'RE GONE

A debut that explores navigating challenges and finding your voice.

Auggie’s an aspiring author who keeps getting rejected, but he has a great support network in his parents and best friend. Mayte’s friends and family are also important to her, especially Abuelita. The teens’ worlds intersect at a party, but Auggie isn’t too smooth in showing his interest in Mayte. Their friends scheme to get them together for a second chance at romance—and Mayte’s first kiss. Unfortunately, it all goes horribly wrong, though that may have been for the best given what they both have going on. Auggie feels like “the safest, dullest, most boring person alive,” struggling with creative writing samples for his college applications. Seventeen-year-old Mayte’s sister, Aida, who’s 31 and has developmental delays, used to live with Abuelita; now that Abuelita is battling cancer, Aida is moving back home. With all these changes, Mayte feels like she has to be the family’s “perfect little angel baby.” As Auggie’s and Mayte’s friend groups merge, the pair are thrown together, and Auggie finds writing inspiration in Mayte’s life. While the dynamics among the friend groups are sweet, the book’s strongest relationship is that between Mayte and Aida, who have Colombian and Mexican heritage. For much of the book, Auggie, who’s cued white, remains a superficially developed character who seems far less mature than Mayte, making their romance, which has little chemistry, hard to root for.

A lukewarm romance with lopsided character development.