I went to ALA back in June and it was bittersweet. I have gone for the last 4 years on MSLA's dime and every time I have found myself both overwhelmed and right at home. I mean, book people are my people and it is so easy to strike up conversations when you are in line to get a book signed by an author you love. I was lucky enough to get to attend a lunch where 5 or 6 middle grade and teen writers presented their new titles with an adorable readers' theater presentation. Two of them were all time favorites Jasmine Guillory and Libba Bray. I was thrilled to get to see them in action. (SO much charisma!) And I was even more thrilled when I was going down the escalator later that day and went by them as they were heading up. Like a loon, I pointed at them and breathlessly said, "It's YOU!!" They both smiled and I was never so inclined to run up a downward heading escalator in my life! (Of course, I didn't because of physics...)
Anyway, I finally got around to reading the books they were presenting and both of them were absolutely wonderful! So full of truth and nostalgia, I could barely put them down.
First. up was Jasmine's IT'S ONLY DANCING. (We basically met on the escalator, so I am confidently first-naming.)This is a subtle retelling of DIRTY DANCING that hits on so many levels. I am sure you don't need to be familiar with the classic film to enjoy it, but it definitely adds to the pleasure if you are. Kitty (or Kat, if you don't want her to roll her eyes at you) was a devoted student of ballet before the microaggressions and body-shaming of her teacher and classmates made her turn in her toe shoes. She has vowed not to dance anymore and is focusing on her college application process. Well, she is actually using that as an excuse to spend time along while her family is attending an all-ages camp the summer before her senior year.
You're not going to believe this, but when she is out exploring, she comes across a dance party for the employees of the camp and meets a hot and sweet dance teacher and his partner and forms a friendship! At first she thinks Jordan and Toni are romantically involved, but she learns that they are just besties and dance partners. Well, shockingly, it seems that Jordan needs a dance partner for a big performance and Toni has another obligation so guess who volunteers to step (ha!) in and learn hip-hop dancing in a very small window of time. Guess!! Yep, it's the Sheldrake all over again.
Sparks fly, misunderstandings are overcome and this book is shockingly not at the mercy of bad communication between the potential lovers. I adore Jasmine's adult romances (ROYAL HOLIDAY is the best post-menopausal romance ever written and I will fight anyone who says otherwise) and was thrilled that she nailed a younger demographic. This book was a joy to read - touching on themes of reinvention, acceptance, obligation, and, yes, romance.
While IT'S ONLY DANCING looked like fluff but contained more depth, RADIO FREE TEXAS looked like it was going to be depressing as hell, but made me laugh consistently and made me believe that this crazy story of kids running a pirate radio station in 1980s small-town Texas might just have been true.
Okay, Libba Bray is a YA goddess. My YA students at Salem State regularly reference BEAUTY QUEENS as a perennial favorite and UNDER THE SAME STARS was transcendent. This one is firmly entrenched in both the nostalgia and the brown grit of a Texas setting and there is a realism that I have never seen from Bray before. And she fucking nails it!
Bowie begins his senior year taking the fall for a prank by Comet, a new likely-MPDG who is trying to get expelled, and is forced to perform community service at a local radio station run by Marlon who is just the drunken drug-addled Mr. Miyagi he needs. He ends up corralling a group of his peers (including Comet) to help out at the station and it changes the tenor of the town. Yes, the kids are out of control and the powers-that-be in the town force things to a head and everyone learns and grows, but in the best possible way.
There is friendship, romance, and really well-written adults who have depth. Except for the principal. He really sucks. Is there a "happy" ending? Not conventionally. And there is a subplot about suicide that (dare I say) feels a little tacked on, but these kids felt so real to me and I kept staring into space trying to decide where I would fit into the group. (Maybe the chubby, funny girlfriend of one of the Boston boys?) The music references had me hitting YouTube for the songs every 10 pages or so and I loved every minute of it. What on earth is she going to do next?
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