An honest, fresh, and thoughtful summer romance.
Childhood friends reconnect only to discover a new type of love.
Korean Americans Hannah Cho and Jacob Kim were the best of friends growing up. That is, until Jacob’s father died and he and his mom moved to South Korea. Now 18, Jacob is starring in a hot K-drama and feeling the pressures of fame. After Jacob is injured while trying to help a distressed fan, his mother decides they’ll escape to San Diego for the summer and stay with their old friends the Chos. Hannah, fresh from a breakup, is preoccupied with getting back together with her White ex-boyfriend, Nate, who is even more into K-pop and K-drama than she is. When Jacob and Hannah are thrown back together, years’ worth of unspoken hurt feelings—and affection—resurface. Despite their initial walls, Hannah and Jacob quickly realize how much they have missed their friendship. The two fall back into their friendly rhythm, and it turns into something more. The narrative alternates between Hannah’s and Jacob’s first-person perspectives, with third-person interludes following the pair’s mothers. The love story flows easily as Lee incorporates the trappings and obligations of life as a K-drama celebrity, such as fake dating one’s co-star, as well as humorous and occasionally frustrating incidents that come with the territory and affect the couple’s budding relationship. The novel also meaningfully examines issues around Korean American identity, code-switching, objectification of Asian culture and people, family dynamics, and finding inner strength.
An honest, fresh, and thoughtful summer romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-335-91578-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
A solid sophomore novel celebrating love that begs for a soundtrack.
Queer Black girls fall in love at a summer music festival.
When dating the top basketball recruit in Indiana turns disastrous, ruining her socially, emotionally, and in her mother’s eyes, perpetually in love 16-year-old Olivia Brooks begs her best friend, Imani Garrett, to take a summer road trip to the Farmland Arts and Music Festival in Georgia. Imani agrees on one condition: Olivia cannot hook up with anyone on the trip. Meanwhile, Toni Jackson is heading to Farmland for the first time without her musician-turned-roadie dad, who was killed 8 months ago. Joined by her best friend, Peter Menon (whose surname cues him as Indian), Toni is trying to figure her life out—college or something else? She believes that if she performs in the festival’s Golden Apple amateur competition, the truth will become clear. The four meet in Georgia, and when all the solo slots in the competition are full, Toni and Olivia agree to enter as a duo and help each other with their individual quests—Toni’s to perform on stage, Olivia’s to be distracted from the upcoming judicial hearing over violating behavior by her ex-boyfriend and to win the prize of a much-needed car. Although Imani and Peter feel more like devices than well-developed characters with substantial relationships to the protagonists, the exploration of Olivia’s tendency to adapt to others’ expectations of her is wonderfully nuanced, and her relationship with Toni is delightfully swoon-y.
A solid sophomore novel celebrating love that begs for a soundtrack. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-66223-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders.
Andy and Shelbi find love while navigating mental health challenges in suburban Georgia.
It all starts when 18-year-old Andy Criddle drunkenly texts the wrong number. The mistaken recipient ends up offering him emotional support and asks him not to drive drunk. Despite agreeing, he gets behind the wheel—and into an accident. After being charged with a DUI, Andy, the son of a congresswoman running for Senate, is barred from attending his graduation and shamed in the press. Meanwhile, 16-year-old AP physics student Shelbi Augustine, who finds car crashes interesting for scientific reasons, picks up Andy’s wallet at the scene of the wreck. She returns it to him in class and gives him a pep talk before nervously rushing away. The judge orders Andy to complete community service at a soup kitchen where Shelbi regularly volunteers, and when their paths cross again, she confesses that she was the person he was texting. As they grow closer, Shelbi, who has bipolar depression, has Andy sign a friendship agreement. Rule No. 6 reads, “Do not, under any circumstances, fall in love with Shelbi.” Naturally, this is a rule destined to be broken. The comfort and ease the two have are mirrored by Stone’s breezy writing. Her casual tone acts as a potent salve for the heart-wrenching scenes and the searing portrayal of healing. Most characters are Black; Andy’s dad is White, and Shelbi’s paternal grandmother is from India.
A thoughtful, realistically messy emotional wallop that destigmatizes mental disorders. (author’s note) (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-30770-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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