I remember liking this book as a kid, more than some other Judy Blumes even. Same with [b:Tex|33570|Tex|S.E. Hinton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1205124154l/33570._SY75_.jpg|1289321] by [a:S.E. Hinton|762707|S.E. Hinton|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1206505616p2/762707.jpg]. How hilarious that tween me liked books with boy protagonists when I rarely read any now.

When we meet him, Tony Miglione is 12-year-old growing up in a multigenerational duplex in Jersey City, but soon his dad strikes it rich with an invention, and the family moves on up to a huge house on Long Island with a maid. The change is sudden and confusing for Tony, who is also becoming interested in girls (like asking for binoculars for Christmas so he can spy on this 16-year-old neighbor, Lisa (ew). I'm guessing that wouldn't be publishable today, but the binos are on the cover of the edition in this review! Tony isn't a very likable person, really. He's selfish and uptight. Maybe that's just how boys his age are, but I don't have a lot of patience for them--or this one.

This is like most K-Pop YA, but queerer. Actually, a lot of the K-Pop YA I read is queer, but the identity is newer for the teens in Flip the Script than it is in some of the other. FtS is more K-Drama than K-Pop, but one of the love interests-a K-Pop idol-turned-actor, is bound by the pressure to be single/perceived as available to his fans. Obviously, only until a fake-dating scheme is hatched to save the show.

It's a fun, cute read.

Secret K-Pop idol meets American cellist, loses, gets back--same old story. But that's sort of the point of K-Pop YA, right? Though usually the cellist is another K-Pop idol, or at the very least a gazillionairess?

Teen LA cellist Jenny works at her uncle's karaoke bar for cash, and closeness-by-proxy to her deceased father. One evening, she finds herself tasked with ousting Jaewoo, a single freeloader in a group room. For some reason she's extra testy with him, but after a sing off, she's intrigued by this enigmatic boy who plays his voice like a fiddle. One thing leads to another, and Jenny is in Korea to spend time with her dying halmeoni, and she discovers there's more to Jaewoo than she realized.

You will and won't believe the anecdotes about the racism, a sweet and petite Black woman living in Omaha, faces on a daily basis. She and her sister, a comedy writer, tell the tales in a conversational, sisterly manner that's like another character in this book of humor and pain. Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar are conscious of writing for a Black and non-Black readership. There are asides to the different constituencies, noting that for Black readers, this is a "we see you/we know your pain" story. For non-Black readers, the message is this is real.

Despite the heaviness of the topic, the humor and lightness of the tone make You'll Never a quick and kinda sorta fun read. As a white person, I appreciate the chance to see into a world I'm not part of and to learn from the micro- and macroaggressions shared in the book. Like

...Mrs. Art was one of those "women are the n*****s of the world" type of people who want so desperately for white women's suffering to outweigh the suffering of Black people, You know--one of those.
Throughout the school year, Mrs. Art says all kinds of doozies. She would call Black students "colored" or "negro." Now, Lacey was a bit young to know that if you use those words, you're for certain a piece of shit.

...

Mrs. Art showed her true colors when she told the class that slavery was not as bad as it seemed. It made white people look bad, but having slaves was nothing but peer pressure."

This is real, late 20th-century public education in America's heartland.
You can't have a book about racism in the US without a chapter about dealings with the police.

...when you deal with cops, it's not only your job to do what they say, it's your job to de-escalate the situation. A lot of these cops come at you at a ten and if you want to survive the interaction, you gotta get 'em down to a six.

It's hard to get them down when they're wrong and you're not doing anything more provocative than not being guilty.
These stories are told in a way that they're funny, and even relatable (probably because I watch a lot of TV and read a lot of books and zines and follow a lot of other media that detail daily, sometimes deadly racism), but if you take a second to reflect, like I am now, there's nothing humorous about it.

Like a lot of people, I loved [b:Station Eleven|20170404|Station Eleven|Emily St. John Mandel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451446835l/20170404._SX50_SY75_.jpg|28098716]. Because of that appreciation, I stuck with Sea long enough to get into it, which is something I don't always do in these pandemic 2020s. I don't read a lot of literary fiction these days, so it's satisfying to follow a story that doesn't have a predictable ending. Except for the following part. I didn't have the easiest time remembering who some of the characters were in this back-and-forth timeline. Much of the novel takes place in moon colonies (on the Sea of Tranquility), which I think is pretty cool. So when a pandemic hits, it's not just global.

Covid-19 is mentioned, and one of the narrators shares his repulsion of people hugging and kissing at a party during flu season--not something that's done in centuries future, apparently! I'm having a hard time describing the book, so here are some quotes:

What is time travel if not a security problem?

Here's a good new-to-pandemia reference

(We were still thinking in terms of getting work done. The most shocking thing in retrospect was the degree to which all of us completely missed the point.)

Yowza. But also, when a man is about to be exiled, he asks one of his punishers to take care of his cat.

"Because we might reasonably think of the end of the world," Olive said," as a continuous and never-ending process.

Same goes for Twitter?

Is literary YA a thing? If it is, Kekla Magoon is one of its premier artists. Her style features short, staccato chapters that are like poetry darts--but for poetry resisters such as myself, don't worry, it's all prose, no novel-in-verse treachery! The narrator and newest member of the Minus-One Club is Kermit, a closeted teen who just lost his older sister in a car accident. The object of Kermit's affection is Matt, a charter Minus-One member, who is part of the club by virtue of his mother's cancer death.

At first, I was concerned that Matt was suffering from perfect YA boyfriend syndrome, but as the story unfolds, we learn that despite Matt's outward appearance as the Indiana town's one public gay, he's just as troubled as the other members of the club. Unfortunately, a rule of Minus-One Club is there is no talking about it (death, grief, loss)--even at club events.

Kermit's story reminds us (me) that though things are easier now for queer teens than they once were, coming out is still a Big Deal, especially if you come from a Baptist family and live in a state that would elect Mike Pence governor.

It's mentioned in passing at one point that Kermit is biracial. None of his friends' racial identities is referenced. cw: drinking, suicidal ideation

This book is very long. It's good and all--probably just the right amount of name-dropping, but just too damn long. tl;dr Katie Couric is a serious journalist.

Will they or won't they where the MC is a Black young rising star of the magazine industry, and her beloved is a Black young rising star of spoken word (it's the late 1990s). She was raised by hippies, and he was raised by himself, in the projects. Fun, deep characters, but tedious.

Too much will they or won't they in this multiracial, Black-centering performing arts high school romance. I don't even remember if they did, but probably.

Reading a cancer memoir when you have two loved ones up against it and your mother has just died (of non-cancer related causes) can be a lot, but it's probably also a good idea, to help you center the sick person in your personal illness drama. Having sick friends and family members is weird, but to be expected when you're in your 50s, as I am. However, the storyteller here began exhibiting symptoms of what was eventually diagnosed as leukemia, in her senior year of college.

It's a powerful story, full of recognizable observations like

Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comes in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you're at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you've forgotten. It haunts you until it becomes a part of you, shadowing you breath for breath.

When you're a sick person, a lot of your friends are also sick people, and inevitably some of them don't make it.

And here's an image I'm sharing just because I think it's clever

the Tetons serrate the horizon

Jaouad is an excellent writer. I would have given the book five stars, but it's at least 100 pages too long. I get that the length is the length because cancer was a long, drawn out, struggle, and the long denouement felt important for closure, but I stand by saying that the book is at least 100 pages too long.