THE LOVE CURSE OF MELODY MCINTYRE

When the crew tells their stage manager, Melody, that her dating life triggers a theater curse, she attempts to avoid relationships.

Beaconville High School’s performing arts department believes in curses. After two catastrophic performances of Macbeth, including one in 1906 that burned down the whole building, the cast and crew strictly follow all standard theater superstitions. They also decide to create a new superstition for each show. During Mel’s first full show as stage manager, everything is going well until her girlfriend publicly dumps her midplay. Embarrassed but committed to the process because she’ll do anything to make sure the spring musical goes off without a hitch, Mel agrees that the superstition for Les Misérables will be her refraining from falling in love. And she’s feeling confident in her ability to stay single until she begins talking to Odile, one of the stars of the show. Mel is bisexual, Odile is questioning her identity but knows she is queer; both are White. The book is structured like a play with a prologue, scenes, and an epilogue, and the pacing is well done with a good mix of humor and romance. The sheer volume of rules that are described as being “the first rule of theater” is both confusing and amusing, but theater jargon is well explained in context, so even nontechs can enjoy this novel.

A love letter to high school theater.