LOVE AT FULL TILT

A Massachusetts 18-year-old embarks on a theme park scavenger hunt in hopes of rewriting her future.

After graduation, Lia Baker and her two best friends, Tess and Issy, decide to celebrate by heading to Florida’s Fableland for the Superfan Scavenger Hunt. The winner gets a $50,000 prize and lifetime free park access. Lia hopes to use the money to escape from her mom’s hovering anxiety and her stifling job at her parents’ furniture store. As a fat girl, she dreams of creating body-positive stories. To ensure her success, she forms an alliance with hot fellow contestant Mason. However, as the competition builds, so do the tensions between Lia and her friends—who will soon be going away to college, making Lia feel left behind—and even between Lia and Mason. The characters’ complexities and growth over the course of the story are real strengths; as they navigate challenges, Mason and Lia’s developing romance is moving and inspiring, and their relationships with their families are fleshed out too. Structuring the story around the scavenger hunt helps maintain a sense of urgency that keeps the interest level high. In her YA debut, Howe presents readers with a strong protagonist in Lia, who challenges societal fatphobia in realistic ways. Central characters are cued white, except for Issy, who’s Puerto Rican. Tess is queer.

A heartwarming, strongly characterized romance in which being truly seen for who you are is the greatest prize of all.