The Summer of Jordi Perez (And the Best Burger in Los Angeles)

June 18, 2018
Seventeen-year-old Abby Ives is doing her best to stay positive. Her best friend and her college-age sister are both in romantic relationships that take up their attention. Her mother, a local L.A. celebrity, runs Eat Healthy with Norah! and disapproves of Abby’s “plus size dress size” as well as her homosexuality. Abby focuses on her new internship at Lemonberry, an inventive clothing boutique, and her plus-size fashion blog (“I was designing how other people saw me, and that felt powerful”). Drama ensues when never-been-kissed Abby falls for her fellow intern, photographer Jordi Perez, with whom she’s competing for a job. Less interesting is the subplot—researching the best cheeseburger in town for an app with Jax, her best friend’s boyfriend’s best friend—but Abby’s rambling voice is honest, charming, and absorbing. In a story about staying true to one’s passions, Spalding (The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions)) presents an interesting look at first love, social media, and private and public personas. Ages 12–up.

February 1, 2018

Gr 7 Up-Abby Ives, 15, is trying to get her career started in fashion by obtaining an internship at a local boutique for plus-size shoppers. She has become an Internet sensation with her blog on plus-size and affordable fashion, but has a dark past with her mother who works in the health food industry and is always trying to force Abby to lose weight by fat shaming. The teen discovers that she has to share the seasonal internship with Jordi Perez, who seems like a typical artsy girl; she is serious, wears all black, and loves photography. Jordi has been labeled a criminal for a photo shoot gone wrong and has been arrested for arson. Both teens work toward getting the job that the internship promises, but their growing feelings for each other complicate things. While Abby is trying to discover herself and her newfound relationship and find balance in her complicated life, she is on an adventure with her male friend Jax to find the best burger in L.A. for his father's food rating app. It takes quite a few chapters to shift through the scrambled writing style in the beginning of the story, yet despite the slow pace and inane dialogue, the characters' backstories will resonate with teens and invite them to see how Jordi, Abby, and Jax end up. VERDICT Though the premise is a little played out, this work is sweet and delightful.-Danielle Jacobs, Las Vegas Clark County Library District

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2018
Working at her favorite boutique and falling in love, a girl enjoys a lush Los Angeles summer--until things become complicated.Pink-haired Abby Ives, age 17, has landed an internship at Lemonberry, a small store that includes plus-sizes in its snazzy, creative clothing designs. Abby runs her own plus-size fashion blog and is serious about a career in the industry, but her personal life is in less good shape: She's never kissed a girl and worries she never will. Along comes Jordi Perez, photographer and unexpected co-intern at Lemonberry, who falls hard for Abby's adorably awkward, chatty, gorgeous self. Their blissfully heady romance is a balm to Abby's insecurities about being fat. Her mom, a food blogger who substitutes mashed cauliflower for hamburger buns and nutritional yeast for cheese, believes she needs to lose weight if she wants to lead a happy life and be pretty--but Abby has already achieved both. Yet issues of privacy and consent (photographic, not sexual) threaten this love story. Title notwithstanding, a subplot involving a food app and a hamburger quest offers little to chew on, but fans of colorful fashion and romance will be well-satisfied. Abby is white; Jordi is Mexican-American.Funny, full of heart, and refreshingly free of a weight-loss arc. (Fiction. 14-17)

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