About the Book
-
Author:
- Jen Doll
- Genres:
- Boy-Girl Romance
- Contemporary
- YA Romance
- Voices:
- Cis Boy
- Cis Girl
- Straight
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: So Fun!
BFF Charm: Natalie Imbruglia x2
Talky Talk: Footnote Fanatic
Factor: Author Insert
Relationship Status: I Concede
Content Warning: Depictions of a potential school shooting situation.
Cover Story: So Fun!
I don’t know if this lively yellow cover totally “fits” with the tone of the story inside, but it’s so fun and eye-catching. I like the details on Millie’s braids and Tag’s lucky pumpkin tie and the speech bubbles are definitely on-brand.
The Deal:
Millie has won the national debate championship three years running, but in order to secure a really great scholarship—enough to pay for the full ride there’s on way her single mom can afford on her own—she needs to rock this fourth and final year. Everything is going well until one of the first debate tournaments of the season when there’s a potential gunman in the school, and Millie finds herself sheltering in place with Tag, a slightly eccentric debater from a richer part of town who has decided he simply cannot argue the immoral side of a topic he feels strongly about. When the all-clear is given, Millie and Tag are not only immensely relieved but have found in each other an unlikely new friend.
Millie offers to help Tag find a way to win debates to keep his parents off his back for “tanking” his one extracurricular, and Tag helps Millie discover that there’s more to life than one single hobby.
BFF Charm: Natalie Imbruglia x2
I liked both Tag and Millie but I’m not sure we’d ever be friends IRL. Millie is very single-minded in her love of debate but also with the pressure she puts on herself to win so she can afford college, and she doesn’t really have that many friends because of her intense focus.
Tag very much marches to the beat of his own drum in a kind of hippie-dippie way, but he can quite literally afford to do so because his family is well off enough to allow him the opportunity to “explore”. His heart is in the right place but he reads a bit naïve, and you want to hope that he’ll be able to funnel all that do-gooder energy into something actually productive as he gets older.
Swoonworthy Scale: 3
I never really felt the romantic connection between Tag and Millie—while I’m rarely one to advocate for LESS romance, I don’t know if they needed to “go there”. It almost felt like the only reason they got together was to add in some of the later relationship drama surrounding the fact that Millie’s mom doesn’t want her dating while she’s focusing on getting her scholarship, but those were the most boring parts of the book for me.
Talky Talk: Footnote Fanatic
The author is obviously very passionate debate, and in her author’s note she recounts her own history with debate and how it’s changed her life for the better; that’s definitely cool. I did appreciate how she explained the ins and outs of the process for those of us who have never done debate before. On the flip side, those explanations felt very…well, to put it this way: if you’re a Gilmore Girls fan, the way debate was described was by someone with Paris Geller levels of intensity.
And where I struggled was that I just couldn’t get as into the topic of debate as the author, and thus there were parts of the story I didn’t connect with. Coupling that with characters that I liked well enough but didn’t love and some story beats that felt a bit clunky in the third act…and, well, it was all just fine.
Factor: Author Insert
I don’t know if this was just a personal annoyance or something others will feel, but because the characters had to frequently discuss controversial topics, I often felt like we were “breaking the fourth wall” and simply reading the author’s own opinions on things. And while I didn’t disagree with those opinions on topics like how we need better gun control and capitalism is an inherently harmful construct, etc., I sometimes felt like I was being preached to instead of losing myself in a good book. On the one hand, I feel like if someone without strong opinions reads this book it might be helpful to learn how to structure an argument and interpret the “for” or “against” views on certain topics…and on the other hand, I don’t know if many younger readers would stick around long enough to actually get to that point within this book.
Relationship Status: I Concede
Based on the history I had with your older sibling, I really thought we were going to connect, Book, but your passion for argument, while admirable, is just not something I’m personally into. You can feel free to tell me the highlights later, but I think I’ve gotta skip attending any more tournaments in person.
Literary Matchmaking
For more unlikely bonding over a school activity, read The Secret Recipe for Moving On by Karen Bischer.
Jen Doll’s debut, Unclaimed Baggage, claimed my heart with this small town quirkiness and charm.
If you’re looking for an adorable contemporary that you can instantly connect with, try Things I Should Have Known by Claire LaZebnik.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. I received neither money nor peanut butter cups in exchange for this review. That’s Debatable is available now.
