Queer, fluffy fun.
Senior year brings an entire list of changes to Jay’s life.
Jay, a gay 17-year-old, experiences a dramatic shift when his mother’s promotion to grocery store district manager transports their family from a small, not-very-diverse town in Eastern Washington to Seattle for his last year in high school. Jay will have to leave his best friend, Lu, but their friendship can survive the distance, right? It also means the chance to cross off items on Jay’s Gay Agenda, a list that ranges from finally meeting another gay boy (after being the only one who is out at his school) to, hopefully, going all the way. Things look up when Jay is taken under the wing of exuberant, genderqueer Max, a new Seattle classmate who helps him make moves toward sexy (and fun) Tony and sexy (and endearing) Albert. The story will amuse readers who are looking for a light read, although the characters at times read more like sitcom versions of teenagers than the real things. While the overall tone is more slapstick and humorous, a subplot concerning orphaned Lu’s financial problems is handled with sensitivity. The coronavirus is mentioned in a context indicating that the story is set in the near post-pandemic future, after quarantines have ended. Most main characters are implied White; Albert is Chinese American, and secondary characters in Seattle reflect the diversity of the city.
Queer, fluffy fun. (Fiction. 13-17)Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-301515-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Part exciting adventure, part thoughtful coming-of-age novel, this story retells and overturns familiar tropes.
Girl meets magic. Hijinks ensue.
Shiori’anma, Princess of Kiata and eldest daughter of Emperor Hanariho, is the intrepid protagonist in this folktale retelling. About to turn 17 and be married off to a third-rank barbarian lord, Shiori desperately looks for ways out of the engagement. Her emerging talents in forbidden magic and a run-in with a young shape-shifting dragon help to pass the time before she is doomed to relocate to the cold North. Things take an even worse turn, however, when she uncovers her stepmother’s secrets. As a consequence, her six brothers are cursed into assuming the form of cranes by day. Shiori is whisked away and coerced into silence, for every word that escapes her lips will mean the death of one of her brothers. She must learn to survive on her own and use her wits and hard-won experience to save both her family and country. Readers here revisit the East Asian–inspired world established in Lim’s The Blood of Stars duology. Despite a few hiccups in the logic of the magic, the author cleverly maintains the basic structure of this well-known European folktale type while weaving in rich elements of Asian mythology, including dragon pearls and the goddess of the moon. The exploration of complicated family dynamics is a particular strength, especially the challenging of the evil stepmother cliché.
Part exciting adventure, part thoughtful coming-of-age novel, this story retells and overturns familiar tropes. (map) (Fantasy. 13-17)Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-30091-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
A lighthearted and perceptive fauxmance.
Enemies fake-date to get back into their friends’ good graces.
The morning after a party, Penny Harris wakes up on a lawn chair outside her boyfriend Jordan Parker’s house. When she goes inside and confronts her friends, she is shocked to discover that they had caught her in a drunken make-out session with Kai Tanaka, her sworn enemy and best friend Olivia Anderson’s boyfriend. Used to the benefits of her popularity, Penny feels lost as her friends express their disappointment. But since they are also gleeful that she and Kai are apparently together—as they all predicted would happen one day—the pair devise a plan to get their exes back and restore their reputations: They will pretend to be in love long enough to make Jordan and Olivia (who have actually started dating) jealous, and then stage a breakup during the senior class trip to Disneyland. But as Penny begrudgingly spends more time with Kai, she comes to better understand him and his identity as a transplant from Hawaii, and their dynamic shifts from a mutual arrangement of convenience to something more. As Penny reflects on the various complex relationships in her life—with Jordan, Olivia, her emotionally absent mother, and her former friend Sarah—she learns to recognize the unhealthy attachments she clings to and how they affect her self-esteem and personal growth. Main characters are White; Kai is Japanese American.
A lighthearted and perceptive fauxmance. (Romance. 13-17)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11494-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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