A wry, beguiling romance that’s passionate about faith and love.
Two devoutly religious teenage boys fall in love and struggle to find acceptance in this YA coming-out novel.
Charlie is a 16-year-old kid in a small Illinois town who loves theater and is gravitating from Roman Catholicism to a Baptist youth group. Tim is the son of the new pastor at Calvary Baptist Church and a student at Charlie’s high school; the two meet online and bond despite having opposing opinions on ice cream sprinkles and cargo shorts. Tim invites Charlie to church, where they weather a nosy parishioner. Charlie invites Tim to drama club; the two get in a car crash on their way to a bowling alley (with no injuries); and it seems as if they have a sunny future being “in love with Jesus and in love with each other.” Unfortunately, they are inhibited by the difficulties of making their relationship public. Charlie has an easier time of it: He comes out to a friend and his sympathetic drama teacher, neither of whom seems surprised by the news. But Tim is more furtive, having already been forced into therapy for his inclinations by his parents, and freaks out when Charlie holds his hand in drama club. It seems as if the only thing holding their relationship together is a small voice they hear in their hearts telling them that God accepts them. Shoemaker makes his characters’ religiosity and gay sexuality equally central—and harmonious—parts of their personalities, treating them seriously but in a usually lighthearted tone. He crafts complex, convincing characters and fleshes them out in supple prose and spot-on dialogue that’s split between awkward adolescent self-consciousness—“Okay, so I want to say something dumb but, it’s just that, I kind of almost maybe more than like you,” says Tim—and more knowing, adult reflections. (“Mother will love it and she will cry,’ Charlie muses about his bit part in a school play, “and she will bring me flowers and she will cry, and she will hug me afterwards like seventeen relatives suddenly died and she is so pleased that I was not among them and she will cry.”) Readers will root for Charlie and Tim to find their way through the thicket of anxieties and droll snark to happiness.
A wry, beguiling romance that’s passionate about faith and love.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2021
ISBN: 979-8490557258
Page Count: 153
Publisher: Independently Published
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A worthy second-chance romance.
In this follow-up to 2021’s Better Than the Movies, a 20-year-old college freshman gets a second chance at his dreams.
After the death of his father and his mother’s subsequent physical and emotional disappearance, Wes Bennett left behind all of his plans and the girl he made them with to go home and take care of Sarah, his younger sister. But now, Sarah has graduated, his mom is back on her feet, and by some miracle, Wes has an offer to pitch for UCLA’s baseball team. Liz Buxbaum, the girl he’s always loved, works for the university’s athletic department, taking photos and video of the team for social media, which means that maybe he can have a second chance at love, too. But since Wes left, Liz has made every effort to protect herself from ever feeling that broken again; there’s no room for love, because she doesn’t believe in it anymore. Or she doesn’t want to. This second-chance sports romance includes fake dates, quippy and quirky best friends, real heartache, and the sweet ache of first love. The clever dialogue keeps readers from drowning in the main characters’ emotional push-and-pull. Reading the first novel isn’t necessary for appreciating this one, although knowing the full history between Wes and Liz will only add to the ache and longing readers feel from and for them. Main characters are cued white.
A worthy second-chance romance. (Romance. 14-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781665947138
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
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
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