CW: mild homophobia when characters come out, but it’s contextualized very quickly
I think this came across my Kindle because it’s the already released novel of an author whose next novel was featured in Goodreads’ “Books We’re Looking Forward To” or “Celebrating Pride Month.” It’s definitely something I picked up and then read within a few days, which is not something that happens often given how stacked by TBR list is and how choreographed my hold/loan dances are with the various library cards I have accumulated (I think I’m at 10 now).
But I’m actually pretty glad I read this book! Having just written out a lengthy series of reviews for the Heartstopper comics, which aim to answer not “how to come out” but “what happens afterwards,” it’s funny to go back to a book that’s primarily dedicated to the question of what you do when you’ve had a sexy summer with a girl but have always been straight and into the star QB who is now also into you after you came back from said sexy summer with buckets of confidence.
The story is a lose sendup of Grease, except that the weirdly toxic popular glow up is mitigated by the fact that our lead character, Larissa, isn’t some sort of wallflower who get pretty. She’s always been popular, friends with some other popular kids, and involved in a number of school activities. Well. She used to be, at least. It’s complicated, okay?
And that’s probably the story in a nutshell. Things are complicated, and it’s okay to be confused even in a world where every teenager seems to be totally chill with sharing pronouns and sexual identities in their email signature block. Larissa is clearly holding a candle for Jasmine, the hot daughter of her mother’s boss, and with whom she hooked up all summer. But she didn’t think she’d see Jasmine again, and she’s had a crush on Chase, the star QB, for years now. And just on the day when Chase has come over of his own volition and is flirting with her, who shows up but Jasmine? Who’s not even supposed to go here??
One of the coolest parts of this book is a mild spoiler, but pretty obvious from the blurb so–there’s very little slut shaming in this book, either from Larissa’s mental narrator or any other kids. She’s into Jasmine over the summer so they hook up. She’s into Chase when she gets back and so hooks up with him. That’s…what people do, especially when they’re horny teenagers. Refreshing in its own way. As always…where were these books when I was a kid??