DENIAL

A high school senior navigating her first serious relationship finds herself in unknown waters.

Readers first meet panicked narrator Nova in May: She’s covered in blood, setting a tense stage before the novel quickly flashes back to the beginning of the school year when everything was going her way. She was blissfully happy, in love with her star swimmer boyfriend, Leo, and at the top of her class with potential to become valedictorian. Eventually Nova quit swimming to focus on her studies. While balancing school and sports, she also debated when and where to lose her virginity. But shortly after they slept together for the first time, Nova sensed that Leo was pulling away, leading her down increasingly more desperate paths to keep him in her life. Moving through the course of the school year, the book flashes forward to scenes of Nova’s emergency, offering chilling glimpses of her plight. Unfortunately, the tone of the novel is forced and didactic. The stiff narrative is peppered with cringey slang terms, and the main characters’ dialogue feeds into dumb-jock and egghead stereotypes. Main characters are White; there is some ethnic diversity in the supporting cast.

A lackluster story that fails to deliver on its dramatic promise.