I received an advance review copy from St. Martin’s Press through Netgalley; all opinions are my own and honest.

This is sweeter than Monster Cake or Kitchen Sink Macaroons. (Both of which I need recipes for, pretty please with a cherry on top!)

Pepper and Jack are incredibly well-written teenagers, with believable dialogue and minor existential (slash college/future-career-related) crises, and of course their feelings for each other. Each of them has clear strengths, but they also make a fantastic power pair and I ship it so hard.

But like Pepper's sister's Sex-Positive brownies, this book has so many layers. It illustrates the dangers of the GPA/college rat race (including the way we implicitly tell classmates they're rivals rather than teammates in academia, and the emphasis on going to a Good College straight out of high school); there are productive discussions and genuine compromises when hurt feelings arise; family drama is given as much weight as the Twitter nonsense that ostensibly started it all. The contemporary elements actually feel up-to-date: clear understanding of how social media actually works, meme culture, and pop culture references beyond Harry Potter. There's a secondary character in a M/M relationship; he's out and popular at school, and they tease him about constantly making out with his boyfriend, but it's otherwise not a big deal at all.

The more books I read, the higher the bar is raised — and if this is any indicator of what YA will bring us in 2020, I for one am super excited.

content warnings:

Spoiler

underage drinking (background)

rep:

Spoiler

gay secondary character, minor M/M relationship

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CONVERSION: 13.7 / 15 = 5 stars

Prose: 8 / 10
Characters & Relationships: 10 / 10
Emotional Impact: 9 / 10
Development / Flow: 9 / 10
Setting: 10 / 10

Diversity & Social Themes: 4 / 5
Intellectual Engagement: N/A
Originality / Trope Execution: 4 / 5
Rereadability: 5 / 5
Memorability: 5 / 5