Tired gender stereotypes make this romance feel outdated.
Cree Jacobs never thought she’d be friends with a member of the Ballers Club, until she got to know DeAndre Parker.
Seventeen-year-old Cree isn’t impressed by the Ballers Club, a group of four boys who have looks, style, and athletic prowess and run the hallways of Moorehead High in Akron, Ohio. They’re known for wooing girls—and then dumping them. Cree doesn’t understand their appeal until she encounters DeAndre, a former NBA player’s son who doesn’t believe in love or happily ever after but seems different from the other Ballers. After an Honors English class discussion in which they disagree about what love is, the two become friends—but can they resist turning their friendship into something more? This teen romance is narrated in DeAndre’s and Cree’s alternating first-person perspectives. The story centers on a group of boys who have “wealth, status, and a sprinkle of tattoos” and who frequent a strip club, and a girl who speaks her mind and is called a feminazi by the boy she later falls for. The stilted dialogue is at times cringey (“I’m not aimin’ to win a Pulitzer, but I’m a real dude, and you, you’re a real chick, so let’s get together and write something real”), and the story leans into the misguided narrative that the right girl can make a wandering boy settle down. Main characters are Black.
Tired gender stereotypes make this romance feel outdated. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9781998854325
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters.
When star hockey player Alec Barczewski’s estranged childhood friend, Dani Collins, moves to town, they end up in a mutually beneficial fake-dating relationship that reignites old feelings.
Following her parents’ divorce, Dani and her mom move in with Dani’s hockey legend grandfather in Southview, Minnesota, where she spent a month every summer as a child and where her friendship with Alec grew. Between visits, the two were pen pals, but they eventually fell out of touch. Despite some tensions over their loss of friendship, the high school seniors reconnect. Desperate to get off Harvard’s waitlist, Dani needs another extracurricular activity, while Alec—whose reputation took a hit when a photo of him holding a bong appeared on social media—is eager to improve his tarnished image for NHL scouts. The pair strike a deal: They’ll fake date, making Alec look like a stable guy whose academically gifted girlfriend is related to hockey royalty, and in exchange, he’ll get Dani a team manager position that will catch the eye of Harvard’s admissions officers. Eventually, complicated feelings about their past, stressful family relationships, and their brewing romance boil over. Romance fans will love the deliciously tension-filled scenes between Alec and Dani, who are believable friends with heavy demands weighing on them. They feel like real teenagers, and readers will enjoy rooting for them as the well-paced story unfolds. Main characters present white.
A compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781665921268
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
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