★ 3.5 stars ★

content warnings:

Spoiler

cyberbullying, mentions of transphobia, mentions of underage drinking

rep:

Spoiler

Jewish MC with possible social anxiety [Kate], gay Black best friend [Anderson], gay major character/ love interest [Matt], major character/ love interest with possible social anxiety [Noah], bi & trans secondary character [Raina], diverse minor characters

This was a generally enjoyable read, with a lot of aspects I liked: a close-knit friend group, platonic boy-girl friendship treated as equal to — if not better than — romance, nuanced familial relationships, casual diversity, theater geekery, the whole boy-next-door construct (times two!), driving as a metaphor for independence and personal agency, running inside jokes. I foresaw almost all the main romantic developments and found it satisfying, rather than exasperating, to be proven right.

However, although it all seems cohesive in theory, something about the execution feels like it's more juggling than interweaving all these moving parts, which I found a little distracting every time it switched focus again; some of the balls get dropped, too. As an example,

Spoiler

for a while Kate starts calling Noah "Kappy" because she's jealous of Madison and annoyed at being called "Little Garfield", but this abruptly and inexplicably stops after a few chapters

.

It's objectively probably fine that the representation in this book is very casual, but it did feel a bit underwhelming since Kate is white (Jewish) and presumably straight, even if she has queer friends and POC classmates. Diversity is much more incidental, not central, to the narrative; there are acknowledgments of queerphobia and maybe a few of racism, but otherwise it doesn't really come up. (All things considered, it would've just been one more thing to squeeze in.)

Kate herself was not my favorite, truth be told; though I have sympathy for

Spoiler

cyberbullying/ public humiliation trauma and probable social anxiety

, and I love her loyalty to her friends and her brother, her jokes aren't always funny and I was a bit bored every time she sets off on a tangent to explain f-boys or a Kandy [Kate + Andy] ritual or some aspect of her parents' divorce or just how much she loves the camaraderie of putting on a musical. I found myself relating to a lot of her reactions, especially with that last one, but there was so much more telling than showing of emotions and it all adds to the scattered feeling of the novel.

Overall, I think this is at its heart a great narrative that perhaps could've used a bit more revision to pull everything more tightly together. But the character relationships in particular make this a fun and vibrant read that honest-to-goodness made me smile.

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CONVERSION: 9.4 / 15 = 3.5 stars

Prose: 5 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 8 / 10
Emotional Impact: 6 / 10
Development / Flow: 6 / 10
Setting: 7 / 10

Diversity & Social Themes: 3 / 5
Originality / Trope Execution: 3 / 5