Content warnings: HIV-based discrimination, blackmail
Summary [courtesy of Goodreads]: Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She’s making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she’s HIV-positive, because last time . . . well, last time things got ugly. Keeping her viral load under control is easy, but keeping her diagnosis under wraps is not so simple. As Simone and Miles start going out for real–shy kisses escalating into much more–she feels an uneasiness that goes beyond butterflies. She knows she has to tell him that she’s positive, especially if sex is a possibility, but she’s terrified of how he’ll react! And then she finds an anonymous note in her locker: I know you have HIV. You have until Thanksgiving to stop hanging out with Miles. Or everyone else will know too. Simone’s first instinct is to protect her secret at all costs, but as she gains a deeper understanding of the prejudice and fear in her community, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above is to face the haters head-on…
Jesus Christ, Camryn Garrett can WRITE. I read and loved her newest release, Off the Record, and so I knew I needed to go back and get my hands on her debut as soon as I could. And It Is. So. Good. How is this woman so young and so adept at writing, plotting, creating the sweetest friend groups, highlighting Black romance, and just generally giving me all of the feelings?
Her books are about deep and sometimes heavy topics (sexual harassment and assault in Off the Record, HIV-related discrimination and navigating sexuality here), but they’re still some of the most joyful, relatively low-conflict YA contemporaries I’ve come across. And yes, this book does revolve around someone threatening to ‘out’ main character Simone’s HIV status if she keeps dating her new boyfriend, which is all kinds of hellish, but Garrett streamlines the plot and makes it less traumatizing than it could be. (After initial hesitation, Simone discloses the threats to her best friends and later her boyfriend, which minimizes the tedious types of misunderstanding and confusion that this subgenre usually revolves around.)
Things I loved about this book:
-Main character Simone, from her unapologetically dorky obsession with musicals to her gradual realization that she IS ‘bisexual enough’ to claim the identity, even if she’s dating a boy
-Simone’s dads, who are incredibly supportive and relatively chill (though I wish they weren’t so keen on accompanying her to her GYN appts, even if the book makes this way less skeezy than it could’ve been)
-Simone’s best friends, Claudia (a slightly judgy, openly ace lesbian) and Lydia (a chill bi girl), who are immediately ride-or-die despite knowing each other only a few months
-Simone’s HIV+ teen support group, who turn out to be sweeties after all
-Simone’s love interest Miles, who may be a little TOO perfect, but Simone deserves perfect (as do the teen readers who might relate to this story for whatever reasons)
