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 story of coming out and coming-of-age in a post–9/11 world.
As an Iranian American Muslim teen, Amir Azadi has long pondered what it would be like to come out to his parents.
In fact, he keeps a mental tally of all the positive and negative comments his parents make about gay people. But everything comes crashing down when school bullies photograph Amir kissing Jackson, the football player he’s been secretly dating. They give Amir an ultimatum: $1,000 in hush money or they will show his parents the photo. On the brink of emotional collapse, Amir runs away, landing in Rome, where he meets Jahan, a proudly gay Iranian/Dominican man, and his eclectic friends. Amir embraces the newfound freedom to be himself and experience the joys of gay culture and community. But as his family desperately searches for him and relationships with his new friends become complicated, he finds himself missing home and feels the fear of being out ebb away. The story moves back and forth in time between these events and the airport interrogation room where, following a family altercation on the plane home, Amir tells his coming-out story to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. The narrative structure will keep readers riveted as they try to piece together events. Ahmadi’s writing is gripping, taking readers through the myriad emotions a gay Muslim teen experiences growing up in a country whose government is looking for an excuse to demonize Muslims.
A story of coming out and coming-of-age in a post–9/11 world. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-20287-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heart-rending and heartwarming.
Traumatic amnesia and the smothering confines of a conservative town can’t stunt the blooming of young love.
Stevie Green and Nora Martin have been dating secretly for nearly two years when disaster strikes: a terrible accident, a head injury, and suddenly, 18-year-old Stevie has no memory of the past couple of years. She returns from the hospital to a life where nothing feels quite familiar. Her mother, whom she always considered a best friend, is distant due to the reverberations of events that Stevie can’t remember. Her father has grown remote, engrossed by the pundits on Fox News and regurgitating intolerant beliefs. Even Savannah and Rory, her closest friends from Catholic school, feel like strangers, endorsing anti-Asian comments even though Stevie is biracial (Korean and implied White). And then there’s Nora, a girl she can’t recall meeting in her former life but whom she feels utterly connected to all the same. As Stevie fights to regain her memories and reconcile the sensations of wrongness that pervade her relationships, Nora fights for Stevie, determined that their love will regrow despite the hurdles presented by their town and her own hostile, physically abusive mother. Derrick tells Stevie’s story with finesse, the beats well paced and building powerfully. Small-town Pennsylvania is vividly portrayed, the complex emotions Stevie feels for her hometown becoming viscerally relatable.
Heart-rending and heartwarming. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781665902373
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
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