May 1, 2021
Through making a podcast, a Memphis teen ponders the point of love while examining her own and her parents' relationships. High school has ended, and Vincent, 18-year-old Lee Swan's boyfriend of the past two years, has just broken up with her. She tries to play it maturely while they make a final episode of their podcast, Artists in Love, but between their breakup and her parents' fresh separation, Lee is a mess. When she discovers evidence that leads her to question the beginning of her parents' relationship, Lee starts to work on a new podcast as she uncovers the truth. She's assisted by her friends Max and Risa, both queer, and through them, Lee begins to open up about her own bisexuality. As she grapples with how to live authentically, she embraces a more expansive view of romance and relationships. In addition to navigating sexuality, this character-driven story also provides insight into how race and gender shape how one moves through the world. It showcases the different lived experiences of realistic side characters, including biracial (Black/White) Vincent, Filipino Max, and Max's nonbinary parent. These characters are juxtaposed with Lee, a White woman who often reads as straight. The characters are enriched by their passions: The book is populated with artists of varying types, and Lee loves being a sound engineer. Additionally, the Memphis setting is vividly portrayed, including all its lovely weirdness and challenges. A thoughtful exploration of love and identity. (Fiction. 14-18)
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May 24, 2021
Printz Honoree McCoy (I, Claudia) braids multiple plotlines in this Memphis-set novel about relationships and social norms. Lee Swann, white and quietly bisexual, has been planning her post–high school future with her boyfriend and podcast-producing partner Vincent, who’s biracial (Black/white). Then they break up on air, during their podcast about artists in love. Now what? Lee’s artist parents are also splitting up, and old family friend Sage, who is white and nonbinary, has just come for a visit with their queer son Max, who’s half Filipino. A skilled sound engineer, Lee starts reimaging her life by investigating the past as a podcast, aided and abetted by Max. Would Lee’s parents be together if not for her? Is love possible? Lee and Max compare notes on intersectionality and life experience, while Lee interviews her parents, their friends, and gets input from Vincent and new friend Risa, to whom Lee is increasingly attracted. Alongside details of various relationships’ workings, McCoy conveys Lee’s ruminations about love, loss, history, and white/straight privilege. It’s rare in YA fiction that parents’ emotional lives are given the importance they actually have in many teens’ lives, and this book offers a well-drawn corrective while keeping Lee at the forefront. Ages 12–up. Agent: Patricia Nelson, Marsal Lyon Literary.
July 1, 2021
Grades 8-11 For Lee and her boyfriend, Vincent, their Artists in Love podcast has been a way to examine love stories. So it's fitting that they dedicate their final episode of the podcast--on the eve of their breakup, as Vincent prepares to leave their home in Memphis for a high-profile internship and Howard University--to their own romance. But while Lee is brokenhearted to see their romance come to an end, she's also not without conflict; despite her love for Vincent, she's been hooking up with Claire, the barista at the coffee shop where she works as a sound engineer. And when their podcast ends, she's ready to start another--one that explores her parents' failing marriage. With the help of old friend Max and new friend Risa, Lee digs into her parents' history and her own, coming to terms with her own whiteness, her own queerness, and her complicated love for Memphis itself. Printz Honor Book author McCoy (I, Claudia, 2018) offers a nuanced coming-of-age story about a complex heroine with her heart on her sleeve.
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