Emotionally moving but underdeveloped.
Three queer best friends navigate love and relationships as they prepare to graduate high school.
Dawn Salcedo is spending her senior year completing her passion project, a documentary about queer love starring her best friends, Georgia and Edie, and other queer students at their school. When her entry makes it to the final round of the student category of the Austin Film Festival, Dawn has the chance to win a life-changing college scholarship that would allow her to pursue her dream of becoming a filmmaker, using her savings to pay for a caregiver for her sick father. Dawn, who is Latine and trans, also wants a relationship with a boy that is “normal and good and sweet.” Korean American Georgia adores her single mother, but their closeness is strained when her mom begins dating a man who has a disturbing side. Edie, who is Black, is trying to be the perfect daughter and hides from her religious parents the fact that she’s dating someone who’s nonbinary. The third-person narrative primarily focuses on Dawn, but Georgia’s and Edie’s stories unfold with complexity as well. Unfortunately, the novel feels too short for readers to fully get to know and become invested in the characters. This debut sincerely explores feelings that will resonate with readers, but many of the serious themes threaded through it would have benefitted greatly from more extensive and deeper treatment.
Emotionally moving but underdeveloped. (Fiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781646142705
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Levine Querido
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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