On Sale Date: March 14th 2017
Pages: 256
Age Range: Young Adult/Middle Grade
Mattie is a middle school student who loves reading. No wonder she is just a great student. She loves to hang out with her best friends Lucy and Tessa, who know she has a crush on Elijah. At a friends party, she meets a girl who is from the UK and new to her school: Gemma Braithwaite. The next week in English class, Mr. Torres announces the school play for that year: Romeo and Juliet.
Mattie has a major part, and Liam is cast as Romeo, while Gemma will be playing Juliet. Mattie gets to know Gemma better during rehearsal, and more and more, she starts to like her, and soon enough, she finds out that...she has a crush on Gemma. But why? She never liked girls this way and she has a crush on Elijah. What does this mean, that she is gay? Or can she has a crush on a boy and a girl at the same time> And does Gemma feels the same way too?
In the middle in the rehearsal process, Liam breaks his leg and there has to be found an alternate for the lead role of Romeo. Mr. Torres advices Mattie, as there seems to be no one else suitable for the part of Romeo, to consider to play Romeo. But uh,oh..then she has to kiss Gemma! What if everyone notices she likes her more then just friends and will think she is weird?
Slowly, she starts to reveal to her big sister and her friends about her feelings, and who knew that they would be nothing more then supportive to Mattie? Now she can only do one thing, finding out if Gemma feels the same, and just make it a good performance of Romeo and Juliet!
It was quite refreshing to read such a different middle grade novel by one of the best middle grade authors, Barbara Dee. I really liked that the author chose for not the usual girl-boy romance but choose to let a girl fall in love with another girl. I don't think that there are many middle grade novels out that just show how normal this actually is. She learns that she is not weird at all and that she has quite an awesome group of friends who are very supportive. It is very well written, I really liked Mattie. She dealt with her new feelings and situation very well, and in the end everything wrapped up so nicely! Really liked that!
A very good middle grade novel that deals with a serious topic in a very light way! Reallly enjoyed reading it and I can't wait for Barbara Dee's next book!
