TWO WINTERS

This retelling of The Winter’s Talefollows parallel stories of family and forgiveness in two very different times.

Paulina is many things: a semicloseted bisexual, a responsible daughter with NASA ambitions, the keeper of everyone’ssecrets. And in winter 1997, St. Cecelia’s in rural, mostly White Havendale, Illinois, has some big ones. Paulina’s best friend, Mia, is pregnant by her other best friend, Tesla, who’s increasingly overwhelmed with the task of raising his little brother in lieu of his absentee parents. New kid Xander, the only Black student at the school, has not-well-hidden feelings for Mia. Devout, Mexican and Salvadoran American Mia is putting her trust in God alone, refusing to see a doctor or tell anyone except Paulina about the baby. Paulina herself is in love with Ani, a popular jock who won’t take their secret relationship public. (Paulina, Tesla, and Ani are White.) In 2014 Chicago, amateur clockmaker Perdita loves life with her quirky adoptive moms, who are Chinese American and Black, but yearns to find out about her past. When she’s pointed in the direction of Havendale, Perdita’s story and that of Paulina and her friends begin to converge. Finding the original play’s resonance in the complicated kingdoms of high school while still appealingly down-to-earth, the specificity of place and slow build toward complication and tragedy work well in Paulina’s section but less successfully in Perdita’s. Readers need not be familiar with Shakespeare’s original to appreciate this skillful adaptation.

Unabashedly queer, moving, and sincere.