Sarah Welch

Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Our Crooked Hearts

Review by Sarah Welch

Ivy and her boyfriend are driving home from a party to kick off the beginning of summer break when a strange girl appears in the middle of the road. She’s naked and unafraid, and she seems to recognize Ivy. After this, even more strange things start to happen. Ivy finds a decapitated rabbit in her driveway, and that night at the dinner table, her mom, Dana, spits a rabbit’s tooth out of her mouth. Dana seems increasingly upset by the disturbing string of events—until she disappears, leaving Ivy to figure out what’s going on, protect her family, unearth her mother’s secrets and discover her own true identity.

Alternating between “the suburbs, right now” and “the city, back then,” Our Crooked Hearts unravels both Dana’s and Ivy’s stories. As a teenager in Chicago, Dana experiments with witchcraft and gets in over her head. Twenty-five years later, Ivy must deal with the catastrophic results. Readers will be enchanted as the two young women’s storylines hurtle toward each other, past and present colliding in a supernatural climax that will transform mother and daughter completely.

Melissa Albert (The Hazel Wood) delivers the twisted fairy-tale magic that fans of her Hinterland novels have come to love, along with sharp prose, dark family secrets and a captivating coming-of-age journey for its teenage protagonist. Albert expertly blends mundane high school drama (romantic break-ups, getting grounded, navigating crushes) with black magic (a jar of dirt and blood that Dana buries in the backyard, the mysterious rippling visions in Ivy’s mirror, the aforementioned rabbit). Presented against the vividly rendered and decidedly realistic backdrops of 1990s Chicago and present-day suburbia, all of these elements come together to create a truly bewitching novel.

Every gripping chapter of Our Crooked Hearts is packed with suspense, spellbinding prose and impossible decisions. Despite their otherworldly proclivities, Albert’s dimensional characters feel wholly believable as they grapple with questions of protection, betrayal, friendship and the price of power.

Melissa Albert delivers the twisted magic that her fans have come to love via two storylines that hurtle toward each other on a supernatural collision course.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

The Summer of Bitter and Sweet

Review by Sarah Welch

For Lou, the months before college are full of change and uncertainty. She just broke up with her too-pushy boyfriend, and she thinks she might be asexual. Her mother, Louisa, is away selling beadwork on the powwow circuit, and her former best friend, King, is back in town for the first time in three years. And her family’s ice cream business is going under.

Then a letter arrives from Lou’s father, a dangerous, manipulative white man who has recently been released from prison and demands to be involved in her life. Lou was conceived when he sexually assaulted her mother, and the pair spent years running from that history and their own Métis heritage before finally settling down with Lou’s uncles. If anyone in Lou’s family learns that her father is out of prison, Lou fears that Louisa will want the two of them to disappear again, and Lou will lose every ounce of stability she’s managed to find. With support and tough love from King and other friends, Lou spends a pivotal summer learning to finally embrace who she is, who she loves and what she stands for.

In The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Jen Ferguson (Border Markers) portrays one weighty subject after another, including Lou’s exploration of her sexuality, her relationship to her Métis heritage, her quest to save her family’s ice cream shack, her father’s threats and her burgeoning relationship with King. Each of these storylines could easily fill a whole novel, but Ferguson impressively blends them all together in a complex depiction of one teenager’s struggle to find her center when every aspect of her life seems on the verge of collapse.

Lou is wonderfully multidimensional, and so is everyone around her. As Lou comes to a new appreciation of her community and its power, Ferguson paints the novel’s ancillary characters with vivid strokes, creating detailed and dynamic portraits of Louisa, King, Lou’s uncles and even her ex-boyfriend.

Readers will appreciate that Lou’s journey toward strength and self-acceptance is not neat or linear; instead, it’s messy and filled with as many stumbles as steps forward. They’ll empathize with her when she reaches for King and when she pushes him away. It’s moving and inspiring to witness Lou’s tenacious drive to understand, on her own terms, what family and identity truly mean.

Jen Ferguson’s The Summer of Bitter and Sweet is a moving, inspiring portrait of one teenager’s tenacious desire to understand what family and identity truly mean.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Nothing Burns as Bright as You

Review by Sarah Welch

To commemorate their “dumpster fire” of a year ending, two teenage girls light a fire in their school’s garbage dumpster. Over the course of a single day, the fire sets off a twisting chain of events and unravels a complex relationship that flickers between best friendship and so much more.

In Nothing Burns as Bright as You, Ashley Woodfolk (When You Were Everything, The Beauty That Remains) plumbs the depths of female friendship, first love and the grief that often comes with navigating—and losing—both. The narrator retraces the history of an intimate friendship with someone referred to only as “you” across the novel’s nonlinear structure, creating a portrait of a defining relationship. With the day of the fire as an anchor, readers follow the girls back and forth in time and witness them becoming best friends and partners in crime, then slowly but fully—though the narrator’s partner can’t bring herself to admit it—falling in love.

Woodfolk’s second-person free verse and rich language imbue both characters and their relationship with vivid, vulnerable life. She exposes their conflicted feelings about their love for each other as well as the exhaustion from the weight of the expectations they bear as Black teenagers. The narrator poignantly recalls her first realization that she lives “in a world that always makes things that aren’t your fault / your fault,” describing how, at age 13, she found herself in danger simply because she was a Black girl. Yet only a few lines later, the narrator reveals that when she met her friend “a year later, almost to the minute,” her friend told her, “You didn’t need to be rescued. / You are infinitely powerful. / You had already saved yourself.”

In moments like these, Woodfolk captures an intense connection between two girls in its truest form. Readers will recognize touchstones of their own friendships in the unguarded, affectionate and protective way Woodfolk’s protagonists relate to one another, and they’ll also feel the ferocity of the deep love and sadness the girls experience as their relationship begins to singe and smolder in the days before and the hours after the fire. Nothing Burns as Bright as You is an emotional inferno and Woodfolk’s best book yet.

Discover why Ashley Woodfolk calls ‘Nothing Burns as Bright as You’ her most “emotionally honest” book yet.

In Nothing Burns as Bright as You, Ashley Woodfolk plumbs the depths of female friendship, first love and the grief that often comes with navigating—and losing—both.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

When You Get the Chance

Review by Sarah Welch

Millie Price has her heart set on Broadway, so when her single dad tells her that he wants her to stay in New York for her senior year of high school rather than attending the prestigious musical theater pre-college she’s been accepted to in California, she feels her dreams slipping away. When she stumbles across her dad’s old college-era LiveJournal, however, she discovers the perfect solution. If Millie can find her mom, she’s convinced she’ll have an ally—but the LiveJournal entries mention three different women. As Millie sets out to find out which of her dad’s former flames is her mother, she realizes there’s someone else she needs to get to know: herself.

Emma Lord’s When You Get the Chance is an exuberant celebration of all things Broadway, complete with musical theater references on nearly every page. But this gender-bent Mamma Mia! retelling is also a touching exploration of what family really looks like, and a powerful reminder that sometimes everything we need is already right in front of us.

Millie describes herself as “a lot,” and she’s not wrong. With her meticulously styled looks and her “Millie Moods,” which she describes as feeling like “everything is just so much that . . . it’s going to spill out of me if I don’t find a place to put it,” Millie is an unapologetically loud character who is unafraid to take up space. Add in her deep-seated kindness and her single-minded pursuit of her goals, and Millie is a fun and easy protagonist to root for.

The book’s supporting characters come to life just as vividly, from Millie’s steadfast best friend, Teddy, and her drama club rival-turned-crush, Oliver, to her introverted dad and the outgoing aunt who helped him raise her, to each of her potential moms. This rich cast of characters creates an enviable found family that lifts one another up and shows Millie that there might be a better way to achieve her dreams.

Perfect for the “theater dweebs” to whom the book is dedicated, as well as any teen who’s ever felt somehow incomplete, When You Get the Chance is a joyful read that will have readers tapping their toes to the music in Millie’s heart.

Raised by her dad, theater-loving Millie longs to discover her mom’s identity. Does her dad’s old LiveJournal hold the key?
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

The Diamond Keeper

Review by Sarah Welch

Claudie Durand is 18 years old and knows that she will never marry. She will be useful and dependable, but nothing more. Her father decided this when Claudie was young, after her mother abandoned their family to join a religious order. Claudie’s beautiful younger sister, Mathilde, will marry and begin her own life, while Claudie will take over running the family inn. But when the French Revolution finally reaches the northwestern region of Brittany and the revolutionary army destroys Claudie’s village, both Claudie’s and Mathilde’s plans for the future disappear in the smoke.

The two sisters, the sole survivors of their village, are thrust into the resistance efforts of a group called the Legion. Together, Claudie and Mathilde make their way toward the Breton capital of Rennes and then to England, joining forces along the way with a resistance leader known only as the Rooster of Rennes. Claudie’s intelligence and capability propels them forward, and as she grows closer to the cause—and to the Rooster himself—Claudie finally begins to recognize her worth.

In The Diamond Keeper, Jeannie Mobley (The Jewel Thief) thrusts readers into the midst of the French Revolution, vividly illustrating the horrors of war. Claudie is an appealing protagonist who brings historical events to life for readers as they follow her journey from France to England and her transformation from indifference and insecurity to passion and confidence. Claudie’s romance with the Rooster of Rennes is endearing, if a bit predictable, and it’s enjoyable to see Claudie discover her own strength as she repeatedly saves the day, not to mention the Rooster’s life.

More poignant is the evolution of Claudie’s relationship with Mathilde. Claudie has served as a maternal figure for Mathilde since both girls were very young. Mathilde, it seems, recognized Claudie’s potential long before Claudie ever did, and as Claudie’s emotions toward Mathilde shift from resentment and envy to respect and even admiration, readers will be moved by the new and more mature bond of sisterhood that forms between them.

The backdrop of the French Revolution will pique the interest of young history buffs, and Claudie’s leadership will make the book a hit with readers who’ve questioned their self-worth, their purpose or their path.

This adventurous tale, set during the French Revolution, is grounded by an appealing protagonist and a touching portrayal of sisterhood.
YA FictionYA

Bluebird

Review by Sarah Welch

When German-born Eva Gerst arrives at Powell House in New York in the wake of the Second World War, she’s on a mission—but not the mission the United States government thinks they’ve enlisted her for. Yes, she’s searching for the Nazi leader they’ve asked her to find, but she has no intention of turning him over to them as instructed. She knows they’ll only protect him. Worse, they’ll allow him to continue his grotesque psychological experiments, like the ones he conducted on the people imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in the interest of staying one step ahead of the Soviets. No, Eva is determined to bring this Nazi to justice herself.

In Bluebird, author Sharon Cameron (The Light in Hidden Places) dives deep into the dark, little-recognized period immediately following WWII, when the U.S. raced to secure German technology, including Nazi expertise, equipment and strategy, both for its personal use and to keep it out of Soviet hands. The depth of Cameron’s research on this historical era results in a completely immersive novel. Readers will find themselves dropped directly into postwar Germany and New York City alongside Eva as she witnesses the atrocities of the concentration camps and the racist attitudes of both Germans and Americans. They’ll also find beacons of hope among the American Friends Service Committee, which welcomes Eva to Powell House when she first arrives in America. The AFSC, writes Cameron in a lengthy author’s note, was a real organization that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 for its efforts during both world wars and was “one of the few organizations willing to work immediately with non-Jewish German immigrants” after WWII.

Cameron pulls no punches in Bluebird. Although the novel is rarely graphic and never gratuitous, many of Eva’s experiences, including her physically and psychologically abusive parents and the aftermath of her best friend’s sexual assault, resonate viscerally. Despite the novel’s weighty material, Cameron never loses sight of the heart at the center of the story. Eva’s loyalty to her best friend, her struggle to understand her identity and her budding romance with Jacob Katz, whom the AFSC has assigned to help her settle into her new life in America, all keep Bluebird grounded, providing touchstones of warmth amid the horrors of Eva’s past. And when it comes to the impossible decisions Eva must make, Cameron ensures that readers will be searching for the “right” choice right along with her.

In Bluebird, author Sharon Cameron (The Light in Hidden Places) dives deep into the dark, little-recognized period immediately following WWII, when the U.S. raced to secure German technology, including Nazi expertise, equipment and strategy, both for its personal use and to keep it out of Soviet hands.

YA FictionYA

Both Sides Now

Review by Sarah Welch

Finch Kelly feels most at home on the debate stage, and he knows winning the national debate championship could be his ticket to achieving his dreams: admission to Georgetown University and the first step toward becoming the first transgender member of Congress. But his family’s finances are falling apart, his feelings for his debate partner, Jonah, are growing more and more complicated and the topic for the championship debate will require him to argue against his own human rights. As the pressure mounts, Finch begins to lose confidence in everything he once believed.

In this sharp and emotional first novel, author Peyton Thomas explores the queer high school experience through Finch, who longs to look more like the teenage boy he is and whose feelings for Jonah are causing him to question his sexual orientation. The novel also confronts racism through Jonah’s experience as a Filipino American who deals with microaggressions from debate judges and his gorgeous, Juilliard-bound boyfriend. Add in the socioeconomic woes that are never far from Finch’s thoughts, as his parents grapple with unemployment and his debate opponents' families write huge checks to prestigious colleges, and Both Sides Now is jampacked with timely issues.

Thomas doesn’t pull any punches on difficult topics and never once reduces his characters to objects of pity. Instead, he depicts teenagers who are working hard to find their places in a world that has thrown obstacle after obstacle in their paths. The novel balances serious political conversations and scenes of moving emotional hardship with moments of comedy and a spirit of true camaraderie and respect between Finch and Jonah.

Teens who participate in their schools' debate or Model United Nations programs will especially appreciate the book’s detailed exploration of contemporary political issues, but Thomas’ witty prose, strong pacing and knack for creating vivid, dimensional characters have broad appeal.

Finch Kelly feels most at home on the debate stage, and he knows winning the national debate championship could be his ticket to achieving his dreams: admission to Georgetown University and the first step toward becoming the first transgender member of Congress.

YA FictionYA

Under a Dancing Star

Review by Sarah Welch

In 1930s England, Bea’s parents are determined that she should become a proper lady, but she’d rather be studying insects. So when she mortifies her parents yet again (in a dinner scene that involves a discussion of the mating habits of glowworms, the local vicar and the word fecundity), they send her to Italy so her strict Uncle Leo can set her straight. 

Bea arrives to discover that her uncle’s fiancée, Filomena, has turned his once stuffy villa into an artists’ haven. Rather than polishing her manners, Bea will spend her summer studying art with Ben, an obnoxious though decidedly handsome painter. In an effort to keep Ben’s ego in check and to give Bea a taste of the romance she craves—in the interest of scientific inquiry, of course—friends dare Bea and Ben to start up a summer fling, but it soon becomes clear that they’re both in for far more than they bargained for.

Under a Dancing Star is an effervescent retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, in which author Laura Wood transplants Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Benedick to an artists’ colony in Tuscany. There, young Bea is encouraged to explore her passions under the watchful but mischief-minded eyes of her new friends.

Wood’s second YA novel resurrects the dazzle that made her first, 2020’s A Sky Painted Gold, such a gem. Readers will be immersed in the electric heat of an Italian summer, surrounded by vibrant characters and inspired by their free-flowing conversations and progressive ideals. 

Although Wood treats the political tensions in Italy on the eve of World War II seriously, the novel’s primary focus is Bea’s personal journey. In the beginning, she’s a witty and intelligent girl who’s unhappy with the status quo but uncertain how to define her ambitions. Over the course of her transformative summer, it’s heartening to see Bea’s evolution into a self-assured young woman who is determined to chart her own course. And if readers fall just a little bit in love with Ben in the meantime, well, who could blame them?

Under a Dancing Star is an effervescent retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, in which author Laura Wood transplants Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Benedick to an artists’ colony in Tuscany.

YA FictionYA

Instructions for Dancing

Review by Sarah Welch

Evie used to believe in love. She has bookshelves full of romance novels to prove it. But she’s recently realized just how naive she’s been. After all, her father’s affair and her parents’ subsequent divorce are irrefutable evidence that, in real life, love stories always end in heartbreak. 

When Evie tries to get rid of her romance novel collection, a strange encounter leaves her with two things: the address for the La Brea Dance Studio and unnerving visions of exactly how other couples’ love stories will end. As Evie tries to discover the source of her visions, she makes her way to the dance studio, where she finds herself entering a ballroom dance competition with a boy named X. Despite her best efforts and better judgment, Evie begins to fall for X, and her growing feelings for him prompt her to wonder whether love is such a terrible idea after all.

Nicola Yoon’s Instructions for Dancing will break readers’ hearts and put them back together again several times. Evie and X are both healing from their own tragedies while also balancing family expectations with their personal needs and desires. Teen readers will relate to the authentic and sometimes messy way they navigate these journeys. 

Excellently developed secondary characters add richness and depth to Evie’s experiences as she tries to reconcile her cynicism with her undeniable feelings for X—all while dealing with the new configuration of her family and her unwelcome visions of heartbreak. Evie’s “best friend forever,” Martin, encourages her to work out what’s causing her visions even as he struggles to work up the courage to ask out Evie’s sister, Danica. Meanwhile, Cassidy and Sophie (Evie’s “other best friend forever” and her “other other best friend forever”) navigate their new romantic relationship with each other. Both romances fuel Evie’s cynicism but remind her how happy relationships can be. Evie’s parents do their best to protect their daughters from the fallout of their divorce, making it clear that adults don’t always get it right, even when they have the best intentions.

Yoon delivers this captivating story of first love with beautiful prose, clever dialogue that swings between laugh-out-loud funny and wildly insightful, clear respect for the complexity and nuance of her teen characters’ perspectives and emotions—and just enough magic to make it all truly unforgettable.

When Evie tries to get rid of her romance novel collection, a strange encounter leaves her with two things: the address for the La Brea Dance Studio and unnerving visions of exactly how other couples’ love stories will end.

YA FictionYA

Kate in Waiting

Review by Sarah Welch

Kate and Andy have always loved having crushes on the same boys. After all, what could be more fun than spending time with your best friend dissecting every glance, word and text message for hidden signs of reciprocation from the object of your mutual affection? But when their summer theater camp crush, Matt, shows up at their school on the first day of junior year, their lighthearted attraction to him suddenly becomes a little too real. As Kate navigates her feelings for Matt—not to mention the stress of the fall musical—she wonders if her friendship with Andy can withstand first love.

Though Kate’s and Andy’s competing crushes on Matt take center stage for much of the book, Kate in Waiting celebrates love in all its forms, including friendship, family, unrequited attractions and new romances. Kate’s BFF-ship with Andy is fierce, flawed and extremely relatable, as is her sibling dynamic with her older brother, Ryan, and her budding flirtation with Ryan’s best friend, Noah.

Becky Albertalli creates a colorful, true-to-life cast of supporting characters, from “the squad” of Kate’s theater friends to their jock antagonists, “the f-boys.” Although these tropes can be found in any teen movie, Albertalli makes them entirely her own, transforming theater kids and jocks alike into fully developed characters who blur the lines between their cliques.

Fans of Albertalli’s Creekwood novels (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, et al.) will feel right at home with Kate in Waiting, which encapsulates all the joys and anxieties of the high school experience, with special attention paid to the strange and wonderful electricity of the theater. The result will make both loyal Albertalli fans and newcomers alike give Kate in Waiting a standing ovation.

Kate and Andy have always loved having crushes on the same boys. After all, what could be more fun than spending time with your best friend dissecting every glance, word and text message for hidden signs of reciprocation from the object of your mutual affection?

YA FictionYA

Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet

Review by Sarah Welch

For as long as she can remember, Penelope Prado has felt at home at her father’s restaurant, Nacho’s Tacos, where she cooks love into food that brings her community together. Pen wants to open a pastelería alongside the restaurant, but her parents don’t approve, so she’s torn between following her dream and disappointing them, or following their dreams and giving up on her own.

Xander Amaro, the restaurant’s new hire, has never really felt at home anywhere. Originally from Mexico, he’s spent the last 10 years living with his grandfather in the U.S. without legal documentation, always looking over his shoulder, always feeling he doesn’t quite belong. If only he could track down his biological father, Xander thinks, he might finally feel comfortable in his own life. 

When a dangerous loan shark threatens the community, Pen and Xander must work together with their families—the ones they were born into and the ones they’ve made—to save the restaurant. Along the way, they discover exactly where they’re meant to be.

Laekan Zea Kemp’s debut YA novel, Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet, is fueled by vivid imagery and evocative descriptions, from the chaos of the kitchen on a busy night to the smells of the restaurant that linger in Pen’s hair after each shift. Chapters alternate between Pen’s and Xander’s first-person perspectives as Kemp explores their nuanced personalities and never shies away from their dark places, including Pen’s depression and Xander’s anxiety about his immigration status. Kemp develops these aspects of her protagonists with respect, making them parts of their whole, complex selves. 

Pen explains to Xander that Nacho’s Tacos employees are a family, and this perfectly describes the cast of characters Kemp has assembled. Though the book’s villain, El Martillo, feels a bit underdeveloped, the other supporting characters are as complex and well-crafted as the protagonists. This is a powerful, heartwarming story of family, first love and resilience.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Laekan Zea Kemp reflects on the role that hunger has played in her own life as well as in her first book.

For as long as she can remember, Penelope Prado has felt at home at her father’s restaurant, Nacho’s Tacos, where she cooks love into food that brings her community together. Pen wants to open a pastelería alongside the restaurant, but her parents don’t approve, so she’s torn between following her dream and disappointing them, or following their dreams and giving up on her own.

YA FictionYA

This Is How We Fly

Review by Sarah Welch

Ellen Lopez-Rourke is determined to spend every moment of the last summer before college with her two best friends, Melissa and Xiumiao. But all that changes when, after one too many sociopolitical arguments with her stepmother, Ellen finds herself grounded. With Melissa’s help, Ellen negotiates an exception to her house arrest: joining a local league of Quidditch players.

Never interested in sports until they became her last resort, Ellen isn’t sure what to expect when Melissa invites her to join the league and try playing the game based on a fictional sport from the world of Harry Potter. But as her relationships with her family and and her friends become increasingly complicated, Ellen finds herself becoming deeply ingrained in the inclusive community of Quidditch players. Her on-field confidence in her role as a beater (a defensive position) grows, and she begins to recognize that she’s found a home on the pitch. Even though the brooms don’t actually fly, it still feels a little bit like magic.

Anna Meriano’s first young adult novel, This Is How We Fly, transforms “Cinderella” into a coming-of-age story about a young woman who movingly navigates difficult family dynamics and searches for an outlet for her own fears and frustrations—about her friendships, her gender identity and the state of the world. Meriano’s teen characters are dimensional and ready to fly off the page on their PVC-pipe brooms, though the same can’t be said for the adults in the book, particularly Connie, Ellen’s stepmother. The diverse cast of characters authentically reflect the reality of teen lives in 2020, and their interests in and perspectives on political and social issues including global climate change, racial inequality and gender norms feel fresh and contemporary.

Wrapped around all of this is what feels like a glowing love letter to fan culture as Ellen and her new friends immerse themselves in a community that originated from a shared enthusiasm for Harry Potter. This Is How We Fly testifies to the power of fans to breathe new life into stories beyond the pages of books or the wildest dreams of their creators.

Ellen Lopez-Rourke is determined to spend every moment of the last summer before college with her two best friends, Melissa and Xiumiao. But all that changes when, after one too many sociopolitical arguments with her stepmother, Ellen finds herself grounded.

YA FictionYA

Happily Ever Afters

Review by Sarah Welch

Tessa Johnson is a writer. The words pour out of her into romance novels that star heroines with brown skin like hers—and that feature the boys of her dreams, of course. So when Tessa and her family move to Long Beach, California, and she enrolls in a highly selective art school, she’s thrilled at the opportunity to spend hours each day honing her craft. But faced with sharing her work with other artists for the first time, Tessa’s anxiety skyrockets. Her writer’s block is so intense that, for weeks, she can’t write a single word. What if she never gets her groove back? Who is she if she’s not a writer?

When her best friend, Caroline, suggests that finding a boyfriend might jump-start her novel, Tessa zeros in on her classmate Nico, who’s model-handsome and a fellow writer. But as she pursues Nico, her friendships with Caroline and her goofy yet caring neighbor Sam begin to fall apart, and Tessa starts to suspect that she’s looking for validation in all the wrong places.

In her charming debut novel, Happily Ever Afters, Elise Bryant nimbly blends bubbly, will-they-won’t-they teen romance with a frank look at issues ranging from impostor syndrome and identity to race and mental health. Bryant treats the tough stuff with nuance and compassion through conversations among a richly drawn cast of diverse and appealing characters. From a scene in which Tessa and her new friend Lenore bond in the restroom over surprise periods, to Sam’s easy interactions with Tessa’s brother, Miles, who has cerebral palsy and cognitive impairment, to Caroline’s ability to firmly but gently draw her own boundaries, Happily Ever Afters is filled with delightful examples of strong, healthy friendships. Crucially, these friendships ultimately guide Tessa to strengthen her most important relationship: with herself.

Happily Ever Afters captures just how difficult—and rewarding—high school can be. Though the title telegraphs how her story will end, Tessa’s journey to get there is all her own.

Tessa Johnson is a writer. The words pour out of her into romance novels that star heroines with brown skin like hers—and that feature the boys of her dreams, of course.

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