IT'S A WHOLE SPIEL

A revelatory short story collection whose spiel is teenage longing and devotion.

Locke (The Spy With the Red Balloon, 2018, etc.) and Silverman (You Asked for Perfect, 2019, etc.) have compiled #ownvoices stories by some of the hottest names in YA in which young people strive for self-discovery and belonging. From sports camp to synagogue, from a Shabbat table to an airplane, from America to Israel, readers encounter teens who feel they are not enough—not Jewish enough, not secular enough, not sexually experienced enough. Jewish teens travel alone, have crushes, make space for God, feel inadequate, and confront shame around not feeling like a good Jew. They kvetch and cry, show surprising amounts of chutzpah, and most, eventually, find their ways to what is sacred, which is not always religious. The stories are vibrant and honest portrayals of contemporary teenage life, with the stronger ones stacked at the end of the volume, most notably Locke's layered narrative of a fractured friendship healed digitally via fan fiction and Moskowitz's (Salt, 2018, etc.) purposefully fragmented and artful narrative of a young woman in her first lesbian relationship dealing with identity and disordered eating on the holiest day of the year. There is diversity in sexual orientation and levels of religious observance; one protagonist is Latinx. 

Although racially myopic, these are sincere and enlightening stories about achieving self-acceptance.