WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS

Teen eco-warriors reluctantly team up to fight for environmental justice.

Compelled by the never-ending wildfires that plague her hometown of Lakewood, Washington, and the news that an energy company will be drilling a natural gas pipeline, 16-year-old Isa Brown joins the Environmental Justice Club at her high school, looking for an outlet for her rage and fear over the climate crisis. What she doesn’t expect is to be thrust into a co-presidency with GPA-obsessed academic overachiever Darius Freeman, whose vision for the club is more about resume building than civil disobedience. While the two initially clash over the club’s direction, Darius, who’s Black, and Isa, who’s Black and Samoan, eventually find common ground as they learn about the devastating and disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities, including their own. But when one of them decides to push limits in order to spread the message, the begrudging truce and burgeoning feelings between them are put to the test. Throughout, Craft successfully balances developing believable—and likable—teen characters with powerful messages about community activism and the power of youth voices. And, while the environmental concerns are central to the plot, Craft is never heavy-handed or didactic in her approach and manages to acknowledge the complexity of the issue while still offering a satisfying conclusion.

A refreshing romance with substance.