The Best Laid Plans

March 2, 2020
Everyone at Keely’s tiny Vermont high school has known each other forever, and since her lifelong best friend, Andrew, is a guy, the other guys at school seem to think she’s one, too. She can just about bear being one of two known senior class female virgins, until, at her 18th birthday party, she walks in on the other one getting it on. So when she gets a job at the local video store and her handsome college-student coworker, Dean, seems to like her—or at least the more sophisticated version of herself she’s pretending to be—she decides that it’s time. Worried that Dean will freak when he finds out she’s a virgin, she asks Andrew, who’s known as a bit of a player, for help. In her debut, Lund takes the right-under-your-nose rom-com trope to the extreme, and when the scales finally fall from Keely’s eyes, readers may wish the endless detours could have been avoided. Still, watching Keely take risks and be brave once she knows what she wants is satisfying. Ages 14–up. Agent: Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary.