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This lovingly crafted, heartfelt, nerdy triumph of a novel explores self-discovery, friendship, and the importance of cultivating courage to pursue your passions. Harper Reid’s summer takes an unexpected turn when she moves to smalltown Virginia to fix up her late grandfather’s house and reconnects with her childhood best friend, Ollie. While Harper is bold, brash, and unapologetically herself, Ollie is carefully organized: she’s content with her plan for community college, opening a nature-based day care, and keeping her bisexuality strictly under wraps. But there’s undeniable chemistry between the two teens, and when they both join a new Dungeons & Dragons group, they must confront their feelings both in-game and in real life. England’s grasp of snappy banter is engaging, especially during the D & D campaigns, and Harper and Ollie’s push-and-pull dynamic as they reconnect is messy and real, combining sparkling tension with reveals of unresolved feelings and reconciliation. Weaving together themes of queer identity, the power of found family, and finding strength to challenge conservative thinking in a small town, this fun, humorous, and empowering novel will charm sapphic-romance fans.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Two high school students wrestle with keeping secrets from their families. Harper’s life is thrown into upheaval when her mom moves them from Portland, Oregon, to small-town Clintville, Virginia. Uprooted for the last year of high school while navigating a strained relationship with her mother and mourning her grandfather’s death, Harper feels hopeful when she reconnects with childhood friend and crush Ollie. Both girls have secrets eating away at them: Harper doesn’t know how to tell her mother that she doesn’t want to go to college, and Ollie is terrified of the judgment she’d receive if she came out as bi. Harper finds solace in fixing up her grandfather’s old woodshop, where they spent happy summers together, and Ollie’s “extremely gay D & D group” joins in to help. Dungeons & Dragons sessions in the newly dubbed Gay Barn quickly become a safe way for the pair to explore their attraction through their characters, barbarian Aspen Wildeye and paladin Lyra Mythriniel. While Harper and Ollie dance around their feelings, Aspen and Lyra engage in overt courtship. The white teens offer loving portrayals of young people defying societal norms, and their difficulties manage to be gut-wrenching without crossing the line into a spiral of unhappiness. Brief peeks at the adventures of Aspen and Lyra inject action into an otherwise contemplative narrative, keeping the pace from plodding. A coming-of-age tale and queer love story that offers a thoughtful look at the fear of being different. (author’s note, resources)(Romance. 14-18) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.