Friday I'm in Love
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It's too late for a Sweet Sixteen but what if Mahalia had a Coming Out Party? A love letter to romantic comedies, sweet sixteen blowouts, black joy and queer pride.
Mahalia Harris wants.
She wants a big Sweet Sixteen like her best friend Naomi.
She wants the super cute new girl Siobhan to like her back.
She wants a break from worrying--about money, snide remarks from white classmates, pitying looks from church ladies . . . all of it.
Then inspiration strikes: It's too late for a Sweet Sixteen, but what if she had a Coming Out Party? A singing, dancing, rainbow-cake-eating celebration of queerness on her own terms.
The idea lights a fire in her, and soon Mahalia is scrimping and saving, taking on extra hours at her afterschool job, trying on dresses, and awkwardly flirting with Siobhan, all in preparation for the Coming Out of her dreams. But it's not long before she's buried in a mountain of bills, unfinished schoolwork, and enough drama to make her English Lit teacher blush. With all the responsibility on her shoulders, will Mahalia's party be over before it's even begun?
A novel about finding yourself, falling in love, and celebrating what makes you you.
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I love the premise of this book. Throwing yourself a coming out party to tell everyone how bi you are? Perfect. And Mahalia has to work to save up the money for it. But feel like the ending was it bit rush.
sometimes when I read YA books I'm like “god these kids are dumb” and then I'm like “uh oh I'm old”! and like, teens do dumb things. their brains are still baking. adults do dumb things too and what's our excuse.
This book had a lot of moments that strained my credulity tho, like a big crux of the book is that Mahalia has a crush on Siobhan but doesn't know if Siobhan likes girls or not. So she's on high alert, analyzing all of Siobhan's behavior for any signs. Understandable! Relatable! And then she goes to Siobhan's house and meets here mom and they have this conversation:
"I've heard so much about you," she says, squeezing my shoulders. "I haven't heard Siobhan talk about anyone like this since Erin.""Mum," Siobhan snaps. "Seriously?"My gay senses start tingling. "Erin?" I repeat. "Who's that?""No one," Siobhan says."Our neighbor back in Dublin," Katie says at the same time. "Siobhan had a wee crush."Oh. My. God. She had a crush on a girl?And then the dad comes in and they don't talk about Erin anymore. But what I was really expecting to come up at some point is that, this is a verbal conversation! How did she know it was "Erin" and not "Aaron"? No pronouns are ever used for Erin. Erin/Aaron is a pretty 50/50 name in terms of popularity with genders. It's not like "Leslie" where technically there are boys named that but like, 1% of Leslies. Like if your whole thing has been obsessing about whether this girl likes girls or not would you not be on high alert to be like "Wait, girl Erin or boy Aaron??"I was really expecting that to come into play but it's never mentioned again! Siobhan does like girls, apparently it was a girl Erin, but how were we supposed to know?
Just like stuff like that where I'm like, why???
Other stuff, like Mahalia seemingly being very obsessed with saving money and working and understanding the value of money but then impulsively spending money on dumb shit, sure, that seems reasonably teenage to me. (if still a little frustrating TBH)
ANYWAY, it's a cute story, LOVE the cover, and loved the happy ending of course. Just not totally 100% my cup of tea due to weird inconsistencies that a reader who was more invested in the love story would easily gloss over.
