You Have a Match

3.5 stars. As in her breakout debut YA novel, [b:Tweet Cute 45045129 Tweet Cute Emma Lord https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558456354l/45045129.SY75.jpg 66924806], Emma Lord packs more than her fair share of plot into this book. Abby is an underachieving 16 year old who finds out through a home DNA test that she has an 18 year old sister. Through a series of coincidences that somewhat strain credulity, she ends up at a summer camp with both her sister “Savvy” (Savannah), and her best pal Leo, who she is secretly in love with. Abby's relationship with Savvy, an Instagram star who seems to have everything figured out, is the highlight of the book. Unlike “The Parent Trap,” the two girls know they are siblings from their first meeting, but they have to solve the mystery of how they ended up with different parents and with extremely disparate lifestyles. Savvy is a junior counselor to Abby's camper, which leads to some very Parent Trap-like hijinks when Abby rebels against her new sister's authority. So there are many different layers as they try to negotiate the boundaries and dynamics of being blood relatives and total strangers.The romance between Abby and Leo was my least favorite part of the story, unfortunately, because Lord proved in Tweet that she can craft a swoon-worthy love story. But the “I can't tell my BFF I love him because I'll lose his friendship” is one of my least favorite tropes, and the two spend most of the book laboring under the dreaded Big Misunderstanding that could have been solved if they had JUST TALKED TO EACH OTHER. Abby is also grieving the recent loss of her beloved grandfather and dealing with parental expectations for her life after high school. Throw in lots of secondary characters, including both Abby's and Savannah's parents, Savvy's girlfriend Jo and her BFF Mickey, and fellow camper Finn whose interest in Abby is difficult to define, and you've got yourself a lot to handle in 300 pages. Fortunately Lord is truly a talented writer with a distinctive voice, and she makes you laugh, cry and wince as Abby stumbles towards her new normal.I am way too old for this genre (by about 40 years), but Emma Lord may be one of the few YA authors whose work I continue to read (along with [a:Sarah Dessen 2987 Sarah Dessen https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1372181953p2/2987.jpg]) because her books contain universal truths that are relevant at any age.