PASTA GIRLS

Romeo and Juliet retold with two neurodivergent girls in New York City’s Little Italy.

The annual weeklong Feast of San Gennaro brings a much-needed revenue boost to the neighborhood restaurants. Thirteen-year-old Julianna “Jules” Cangelosi typically avoids the festival’s intense crowds, but she’s been working with her therapist to push herself beyond the comfort zone that’s easier for her autism and anxiety. Fourteen-year-old Romea “Ro” Marino can admittedly get pretty intense sometimes, but it’s part of being “a poet at heart” and having ADHD. She wants to enjoy this festival with her best friends, Merissa and Leo, as usual, but Merissa abandons them at a party that Ro didn’t even want to attend. After Ro helps a cute girl get a cooking oil stain out of her shorts at the party, they ride a Ferris wheel, where they each experience their first kiss. How was Ro to know that this girl—Jules—was the daughter of her father’s restaurant rival? The dispute pits Jules’ father’s traditional family recipes against Ro’s father’s Italian American culinary experimentation. Can the girls follow their feelings while avoiding their fathers’ feud? Tracy retains some key characteristics of Shakespeare’s story and inserts literary references—gelato by any other name “would taste just as sweet”—but this tragedy-free version is a feel-good romance. The introspective, fully fleshed-out lesbian leads share the narration, which at times is unnecessarily repetitive and detailed, but overall, this is an engaging read.

An inclusive, well-characterized reimagining of a classic.