Camryn Garrett

I thought, up until nearly the end, that I was going to give this a lower rating. It was well-written, and the characters were genuine—to the point of slightly irritating me. Mahalia is a teenager! And being self-centered is, unfortunately, a part of that. She rarely seemed to put herself in anyone else’s shoes: her financially struggling mother, her neglected friend, even the woman who fell down in front of her. I had difficulty feeling sympathy on more than one occasion.

But…that was show more before it became clear exactly what I was reading. I must say, I was taken by surprise when I realized the author had gone full John Hughes, and suddenly everything made sense. And it was so perfect, considering how she’d been telegraphing clues from the beginning with Mahalia’s music tastes! And with that, I was in love. (And it’s not even Friday.) show less

I loved this book. Josie Wright, a queer, fat, black 17 year-old girl with anxiety, is the main character. Her superpower is writing. She is so incredible at it, that she wins a contest to go on a multi-city press tour and write a profile for a big magazine about Marius Canet, an up-and-coming young actor. On the press tour, Josie befriends a young actress and learns from her that she and other women have been sexually harassed and assaulted by a famous, successful director. Josie's other show more superpower is empathy and she feels a moral duty to use her writing skills to expose the director and seek justice for the women. At the same time, she enters into a relationship with Marius.
So, there is a lot to unpack. Josie is immersed in many situations that are new for her and must manage her anxiety. She has also longed battled fatphobia from family and friends and has trouble believing that she is attractive.
This novel handles the topic of sexual assault and harassment skillfully and sensitively. When listening to the stories of the women who were assaulted, Josie recalls something she experienced in middle school and realizes how much she has dismissed and minimized it, yet remains traumatized by it. It makes her think about how sexual assault is normalized in society and certainly makes her want to fight harder to expose the director, even though she feels overwhelmed and out of her element. She must also address her own presumptions about the gender of those who are victimized sexually.
Even with all the happens, the flow of the novel is very natural. Josie's voice is wonderful and distinct. I loved reading about a queer, fat, black character who is dealing with body image issues and anxiety. This is an important book and a lot of people are going to feel less alone reading it. Be aware that this book may be triggering for some. #BooksForward show less

This was intense. I love love love love loved Josie's relationship with her family members, both her sisters and her parents, and how they managed to push each other's buttons and be annoyingly overprotective while also being reasonable, listening, and showing support at every moment. It was gorgeous. I also felt like the bisexual rep was really nicely handled and gently prodded at the assumptions that our heteronormative society leads us to make. I loved this a lot more innately than FULL show more DISCLOSURE. show less

This is an important book and I'm glad it was written. I hope it's widely read. In my book reviews and IRL, I often mention for a variety of reasons that I did musical theater for nine years as a kid. It's easy to imagine based on that, plus the important conversations that happen in this book, this would be a glowing review. It's not. The book seems poorly put together and rams as many "now" and sexuality topics in, as it can. The high schoolers are wildly unrealistic, providing infodumps show more while whining, and I was not attached to them or any of the subplots, which I found stupid. I hate to admit it, but it's what I thought. The book tries to jump genres: HIV inspirational (which is needed!), friendship drama, suspense thriller, romance, and family drama. Pick two and stick to them! They were all poorly executed too, except the HIV and the romance. Everyone in this is LGBT+, except Simone and Miles, except oops, that's not how it is? Gimme a break. This is a commonly disliked trope in--I'm not gonna. Simone's fathers, especially the doctors, are creepy and controlling.

This book also wields the Sledgehammer of Symbology (thanks to Das_Mervin for the term) in that this is a novel about a teen in the late 2010s with HIV student-directing "Rent," a Broadway musical about the AIDS crisis of the 1980s told through 20-somethings who don't want to pay rent. So, high schools do the musical IRL, but a lot of it gets altered so as to not freak out parents. One high school replaced the word "AIDS" with "diabetes." Upon reading that statement, I walked around my apartment singing, "Roger's girlfriend left a note saying we've got diabetes, before slitting her wrists in the bathroom." I sang this to highlight the absurdity of switching two different diseases with two different social tolls, just to not alienate part of an audience. The song lyric probably gets cut out of high school performances anyway.

After going to great lengths to avoid mentioning Simone's bio-mom in-depth, to the point that I was genuinely not understanding the phrase "Dave is my half brother," both Dave and the bio-mom are used as a Road to Nowhere (thanks again to Das_Mervin for the term). Dave is frustrated that he and his mother are skipped over in a lot of the family's stories. This reminded me strongly of another book that had something similar. It had a guy cheat on his wife with a much younger woman, who waited patiently for months for him to leave his wife. The guy dies suddenly. His ex-wife and his widow are both at his funeral. My heart broke for the ex-wife as the speeches praising the widow went on and on, totally erasing the ex-wife and downplaying the teenage daughter as well. I'd have tiptoed out and probably cried if it were me. I was curious what this book would do with a similar concept. It's annoyingly over in a paragraph with no resolution.

I didn't laugh at any of the jokes or care about the ending, either. It was nice reading about someone who enjoys musical theater, though. show less