In December, I nabbed several eARCS from Wednesday Books and St. Martin’s Griffin’s winter young adult releases. I tore through these alternately fun and moving novels while in a total YA contemporary mood. Also, just a shoutout to these covers — The Project and Amelia Unabridged have excellent ones. Thank you to Wednesday and SMG for the ARCs in exchange for honest reviews.
YOU HAVE A MATCH by Emma Lord | 4 Stars
You Have a Match is a fun take on the Parent Trap storyline and the classic summer camp setting, both nostalgic and fresh, and I tore through it in one afternoon. I didn't love this quite as much as I loved the absolutely delightful Tweet Cute, which was one of my favorite YA novels of 2020, but it is the same brand of charming, quirky, funny contemporary YA. Emma Lord is quickly becoming a new favorite writer of mine for this, especially because she is good at writing Millennial/Gen Z stories when I think a lot of writers still struggle with this. She uses social media and pop culture pretty well without hitting us over the head with them, and I appreciate how she worked in the role of social media and expectations around it.
Similarly, it was nice to see Abby's struggles with school pressures, part of why she was a fun, interesting character. While she could be frustrating at times, I loved watching her relationship with her sister grow, as well as all of the other relationships (friends, family, and romantic) worked into the book - it wasn't focused only on her sister and her love interest. This entertaining camp story was such a nice bit of summer in a particularly tough winter.
PERFECT ON PAPER by Sophie Gonzales | 4 Stars
Perfect on Paper is a wonderful, funny, and cute romcom — I’ve been loving contemporary YA romcoms recently. It's very engaging and well-paced, and I flew through it. It has an entertaining but also interesting premise, with a likable lead character who felt a bit different — Darcy is relatable and more emotionally intelligent than you often see in contemporary YA, but she was still flawed, had relationship issues of her own, and made mistakes.
I really enjoyed her dynamic with Brougham and watching their relationship grow, though both he and their relationship could have used just a bit more development and depth. Similarly, the subplot with Brooke was a little flat, but I'm relieved it didn't become a love triangle. However, the representation in this book is amazing and refreshing - both casual and serious, plus very inclusive, and the discussion of biphobia was so important.
After reading Perfect on Paper, I read Gonzales’s 2020 release Only Mostly Devastated, a YA m/m take on Grease, and adored it.
AMELIA UNABRIDGED by Ashley Schumacher | 3 Stars
Amelia Unabridged has a lot to love: a strong main character with a moving struggle of grief and family and how to live your own life, plus a wonderful small town setting (I always love a book with a dreamy bookstore), an interesting use of an author and fandom premise, and a nice array of background characters. At the center of the book is a focus on grief and anxiety, which is genuinely affecting and compelling.
Ultimately, though, I was too distracted by how rushed the story was — the bulk of the plot takes place over only a few days, and the relationship is basically a case of instalove. Amelia and Nolan's relationship could have been deeper and less idealized, especially regarding their personal growth and healing. It felt like Nolan, in particular, only began to heal because of meeting Amelia and falling in love, which is a frustrating and unrealistic way to conclude a story about grief. On one hand, I did care enough about Amelia and Nolan to root for them, but on some level I wished it could have ended (positively, but allowing them to move forward independently) or been simply platonic, so that not everything was tied up in their romance.
THE PROJECT by Courtney Summers | 3.5 Stars
I tore through this in one night, but nonetheless have some mixed feelings about it. I really wanted to love this — I'd been looking forward to it, because I'm fascinated by cults and haven't seen much fiction around the subject. The Project is intriguing, compelling, and unsettling enough, and the layers of trauma, grief, and identity issues on top of the general premise are complicated and really enhance the novel. The book also shows the various forms manipulation and abuse take to maintain a cult. The split perspectives worked well, explaining so much we wouldn't see otherwise and slowly giving the reader more information.
While the cult investigation is interesting, the first 3/4 or so of the book are drawn out, and then the last act happens too quickly. There is a major character shift that felt especially rushed and jarring, and I couldn't quite buy it. The following action and tragic reveal felt over in almost a blink, and all of a sudden Lo is essentially back to how she was when we first met her.
There was a lot of potential in The Project, and some elements that really worked for me, but I am somewhat disappointed. Summers is a strong and interesting writer, though, so I do want to go back and read some of her earlier work (I somehow haven’t gotten to Sadie, Summers’s previous acclaimed novel). I'll also just note that this novel feels more like NA than YA.