A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of Summer Official by Rebekah Weatherspoon for review.
I think this book may have been written specifically for me. It is exactly to my tastes. It is absolutely everything I have ever wanted in a YA novel, and I do think if I had read it in my teens instead of my twenties it would have immutably altered my brain chemistry.
For the first few chapters of this book, I wasn't one hundred percent sold on the premise: brooding emo skater girl Heaven teams up with bubbly influencer's daughter Saylor to start her social media for her future tattooing career. It was unique, yes, but I wasn't sure the two leads were going to mesh well as characters. Fortunately, I was wrong. Heaven and Saylor complement each other perfectly. As they grow closer, it becomes more and more obvious they're two sides of the same coin, two halves of one soul. Which seems like a crazy statement to make about a high school romance, but seriously, Rebekah Weatherspoon's writing is so good, so convincing, that I do genuinely believe these teenage girls are meant to be.
Also, I absolutely loved that even though this is a super warm book with a lot of heart, it's not without conflict and it's not super fluffy. There's a few different conflicts: the girls defining their relationship, Saylor's issues with her mother and sisters, Heaven's struggles at gaining exposure as a future tattoo apprentice, both girls reckoning with being mixed race while gaining (sometimes negative) online exposure. The story manages to be grounded and realistic but still comforting without being saccharine.
I also really enjoyed the extended cast and the relationships the girls had with them! Heaven's parents are delightful, quirky, and supportive, Saylor's are complex and flawed but still loving, and their shared friend group is a cast of characters - if the author writes more books set in this universe, I'd love to read them. The skate church, the tattooist culture, the queer joy: I just love it all.
This is one of the best YA books I've ever read, and I cannot wait to read the other books by Rebekah Weatherspoon. If they're half as good as this, they will be fantastic.
