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Roaming by Jillian Tamaki, Mariko Tamaki
4.0
emotional funny fast-paced

Zoe and Dani, high school best friends now in their first year of college at two distant and different schools, reunite for a spring break in New York City in 2009. They have five days to cram in as much sight seeing and bonding as they can. But Dani brought one of her classmates, Fiona, and this third person injects an intense new energy into the dynamic. Dani wants to visit all of the biggest tourist attractions. Zoe wants to have some adult experiences she's never had before. And Fiona? Initially she wanted to ditch the other two, but then she decides Zoe is more interesting that the people she was going to meet up with, especially after Fiona manages to buy some weed from the desk manager at their hostel and Zoe turns out to have a fake ID. This is a smart, beautifully drawn story about the painful period between being a teen and becoming an adult, the growing pains of an old friendship, the addictive pull of a new crush, the struggle to figure out who you are and want to be against the backdrop of a foreign city. Fans of previous Tamaki collaborations will love this one as well. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advanced reader copy; preorder it now or look for it in stores in September 2023.