A compelling tale that explores queerness, friendship, and love.
Coming out as bisexual? Not easy. Admitting you love your best friend? Potentially disastrous.
The summer before senior year, Claire Kemp totals her beloved car, Lars, her ticket to escaping her financially struggling family—mom, dad, and younger brother, Chris. Lars gave Claire the freedom to take aimless drives through the suburbs outside Philly and spend time with the person she secretly loves: her trans best friend, Sophia. Unsure whether Sophia, who dates boys, is attracted to girls too, Claire is afraid to reveal her feelings. Instead, she has her first queer sexual relationship with classmate Pen. To pay off the expenses related to her accident, Claire takes a job at a nursing home, where she befriends Lena, an 85-year-old lesbian who serves as a valuable mentor and guide. Claire also learns that Chris is closeted and gay, and the siblings’ journeys to embracing their sexualities are intertwined. Written in free verse, the first-person narration follows Claire’s inner experiences as she navigates queerness, shares her inner hopes and fears, and shows readers how to find true freedom. The story moves quickly, combining introspection with action, and is likely to appeal even to reluctant readers. Most characters read White by default.
A compelling tale that explores queerness, friendship, and love. (author’s note) (Verse fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 9780374388430
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance.
A Connecticut girl and her best friend devise a series of plans in order to achieve their goals: following a dream and winning back an ex.
Eighteen-year-old Audrey Barbour has a Master Plan: attend Blue Ridge Glass School in North Carolina and someday turn her Etsy shop, Golightly Glass, into a thriving business. But her uber-wealthy parents insist that she instead follow in their footsteps and go to business school. So Audrey decides to go find the tuition money she needs with help from her best friend, Henry Chen. Henry needs a favor, too: He hopes that fake dating Audrey will help him win back his ex-girlfriend, and he points out to a reluctant Audrey that this could make her crush, Griffin, notice her. While Audrey’s parents vacation in France for three weeks, the pair rent out the Barbour mansion on the Long Island Sound. Soon romantic chemistry grows alongside their business partnership. Despite the pair’s great preparation and an abundance of secondary characters with connections and talents to help pull off their increasingly ambitious ideas, plans go awry, leaving Audrey and Henry scrambling and second-guessing their choices. The pacing is even, but the characters often take a back seat to the whirlwind of activity that drives the plot, with the emphasis falling on each person’s practical skills and their role in keeping the action moving over their emotional bonds. Audrey is white, and Henry’s surname cues him as Chinese American.
A light and entertaining plot-driven romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593904794
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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