For the Love of the Rom-com
While I read across genres in the Young Adult section, I have a soft spot in my heart for the rom-com. Though this genre might come across as light and fluffy, in actuality the form is able to take on topics as varied as mental health, identity, immigration, racism, and grief, to name only a few. Sure there’s romance, escapism, and happy endings, but what kept me picking up one YA rom-com after another in the last month was the window into the lives of each protagonist. More than ever I’m seeing #ownvoices authors tell stories that reflect their particular experience with the characters that they hadn’t seen in novels as young people. In turn I get a glimpse into a life different than my own and subsequently widen my world view. Here’s a collection of some of my recent reads!
Counting Down With You by Tashie Bhuiyan
The debut novel from this Bangladeshi American author (and the first novel I’ve read by a Bangladeshi American) takes the fake dating trope and turns it into a thoughtful exploration of expectations across cultures. Karina Ahmed is a high school junior buckling under the weight of Bangladeshi parental expectations and coping with anxiety largely on her own. They want her to be a doctor. She secretly longs to be an English teacher. When her parents take a month-long trip back to Bangladesh, leaving Karina and her younger brother in the care of their grandmother, Karina is looking forward to a much needed break. But her quiet month is almost immediately disrupted when, through a series of circumstances, she is roped into pretending to be Ace Clyde’s girlfriend, Midland High School’s bad boy. As the two slowly get to know, appreciate, and, of course, fall for each other, they also encourage and call out each other’s strengths. Bhuiyan movingly portrays the complex experience of a Bangladeshi American female teen, trying to meet the expectations of her more traditional parents, navigate managing her anxiety, dealing with the double standard of her gender within her culture, and learning to stand in her own power.
Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean
Given this cover, I expected something totally different from what the pages held. The main character of this “lost princess found” novel is anything but sweet and demure, the impression I had from the cover. Japanese American Izumi (Izzy) Tanaka is living her best average life with her single mother in the small Northern California town of Mt. Shasta. When she finds out that her previously unknown father is actually the crown prince of Japan, her world turns upside down. Once this knowledge goes public, Izzy is whisked away to Japan to get to know her father and become acquainted with the rest of her family. Having always felt out of place as one of the few minorities in her town, Izzy is hopeful that she’ll finally find a place where she belongs. But life at court is more complicated than Izzy can imagine, and she finds that in Japan she’s too “American.” Izzy’s voice is suffused with humor, so even as she struggles to fit in, her inner monologue made me laugh out loud. A slow burn romance with a hot bodyguard, backstabbing cousins, and relentless paparazzi shenanigans only add to the delicious fun. There’s talk of a sequel in 2022!
Better Than The Movies by Lynn Painter
The premise of girl uses boy next door, with whom she (seemingly) shares a mutual dislike, to get to the boy she crushed on in childhood that has just moved back to town manages to squeeze in a slew of rom-com tropes with witty breeziness. Liz makes a deal with boy next door Wes that she will relinquish the parking spot they feud over daily if he will help her get a date to Prom with childhood crush Michael. Of course it ends up being more complicated than that. Liz is confident and comfortable in her own quirky skin, but is also still dealing with the grief of losing her mother, which seems to be hitting her more sharply as all the “lasts” of senior year are happening. Spending time with Wes in her efforts to get close to Michael, Liz realizes that maybe she doesn’t hate him as much as she thought she did. Movie lovers will appreciate that each chapter is headed by quotes from the rom-coms that Liz obsesses over. I appreciated the balance of snarky banter with an honest portrayal of the complicated relationship Liz has with her grief.
Love in English by Maria E. Andrew
I’d been meaning to read Love in English for months and finally picked it up. Ana and her mother have recently moved to New Jersey from Argentina to join her father, who’s been living in the United States for some time. In Argentina, Ana thought her English was pretty good, but finds that navigating high school in America is a daily struggle in understanding her classmates and teachers. Andrew uses blocks of ##### to show the parts of conversations Ana misses, drawing the reader into her confusion and frustration. Reading this novel, I was reminded of when my family hosted a Japanese exchange student in high school, and the hours she spent translating her homework from English to Japanese. Reading what it was like for Ana, I had a glimpse into what it might have been like for Miki, and it made me admire her, and all the people who come to the United States not knowing the language. I’m certainly not proficient in any other language than English. The short chapters are interspersed with Ana’s handwritten ESL journal entries, musings on the confusions of the English language and poems that play with varieties of word meanings. Ana is attracted to a cute boy in her math class, Harrison, but also bonds with fellow ESL student Neo, who is from Greece. While romance is a central thread in the story, what I found most compelling was the portrayal of what it’s like to live in a place where the ability to communicate and comprehend is limited. Ana’s perseverance and curiosity in the face of that challenge is inspiring.
The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss by Amy Noelle Parks
Last but not least I decided to continue my theme of YA rom-coms in my current audiobook and cued up The Quantum Weirdness of the Almost-Kiss. Set at an elite boarding school for math and science prodigies, this is a dual POV narrative Evie and Caleb, best friends since childhood. Evie is one of the few females at their prestigious school, and excels in math and physics, but hasn’t shown any interest in the opposite sex until new guy Leo catches her eye - with his physics proof. When Evie decides romance might be worth exploring with Leo, Caleb has to figure out how to be supportive, despite the fact that he himself is also secretly in love with Evie. Alternating chapters between Caleb and Evie’s POV mean that we get to see what’s going on internally for both of them as Evie embarks on her first relationship with Leo, Evie and Caleb team up for a national physics competition, and the course of love takes twists and turns. While there is plenty of swoony romance, I also loved the way that Evie has grown to learn to live with her anxiety and how she sets the boundaries she needs to take care of herself while also pushing herself beyond her comfort zone. Parks does an excellent job of making the all the math and physics approachable for the layperson.
There are many more YA rom-coms to choose from in the Teen section, so stop by and see what catches your eye!
