THE LATTE REBELLION

Shy Asha Jamison is snowed under with AP classes, college-application essays and the sky-high expectations of her Indian-American mom and Mexican-Irish-American dad. Digs from classmates at her mixed-race status don’t help, but they give Asha an idea. Voilà, the Latte Rebellion is born, a scheme to promote blended ethnicity (like lattes, mixed people come in many hues and flavors) by selling T-shirts. The profits will fund a graduation trip with biracial friend Carey Wong. The cause quickly takes on a life of its own; Rebellion chapters spring up across the country, generating publicity good and bad. As Asha discovers a latent gift for leadership and passion for social justice (and for college activist Thad Sakai), her grades and college hopes, along with her friendship with Carey, deteriorate. While this debut skims over thornier issues of blended identity, and the Rebellion’s strategy of social change through viral marketing is questionable, Asha is engaging and the depiction of her journey—a realistic mess of vague hopes, serendipitous events, serious missteps and gutsy choices—compellingly original. (Fiction. YA)