Play Book Tag discussion

3.5 stars

Liz has been dreaming for years of attending a prestigious private college to get out of her homogenous, prom-obsessed Indiana hometown. But when her dreams of a music scholarship fall through, she realizes that the only way to make her dream achievable is by winning the massive scholarship awarded to the school's prom queen. Between anxiety, family health issues, friend drama, and a crush on a new girl in school, Liz has a lot on her plate as she begins the month-long odyssey of prom campaigning.

I'm not quite sure how to rate this book. I think that it's very good at what it is: it's a sweet YA contemporary queer high-school story, and I think that it is probably extremely good for its audience (it does a good job of talking about race and sexuality in a pretty homogenous Midwestern town). I also did end up liking it more than I had originally expected--the setting is entirely ridiculous, but it was a fun to read about. At the same time, though, I think I can at this point recognize that this kind of book isn't for me. I found this book a bit grating in the same way that Fangirl was grating for me, and I think that the best way to describe it is that I don't tend to like books that try to be aggressively relatable. This book is chock-full of all sorts of pop culture references (Hunger Games? check. Hamilton? yep, in abundance. Disney Channel? of course. "Queen Bey"? got it.) and, in a very similar way to Fangirl, it made the main character's voice feel less authentic to me. To be clear, I really do think that this book is really valuable and important for a probably pretty wide range of people, but it fell a little short for me.