Release Date: September 22, 2020
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: Young Adult, Magical Realism
Description
“There hasn’t been a winner of the Miss Meteor beauty pageant who looks like Lita Perez or Chicky Quintanilla in all its history. But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or why her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands. So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.”
My Thoughts
Chicky and Lita are the kind of girls who rarely get to helm a young adult novel. Lita is short, fat, brown, and proud of it, even when others try to make her feel bad about herself. She is unabashedly herself, a girl literally made of stars and space dust who talks to cacti and eats cupcakes with jalapeños on top. Chicky, on the other hand, is the self-doubting tomboy to Lita’s pretty pretty princess. She hides herself in grungy clothes, an uneven haircut, and piles of hesitation and apprehension. Years of public humiliation and queerphobic remarks have left her barricaded in the closet, afraid to tell the truth to the girl she’s known since childhood. Neither girl is complete without each other, but both have pushed each other away with their secrets. Lita needs Chicky’s support to ground her (literally and metaphorically) and Chicky needs Lita’s courage to help her finally come out…
Read the rest of this review at Tor.com.
Thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
Punk-Ass Book Jockey 