Rebels Like Us

March 1, 2017

Gr 9 Up-This well-done romance offers up a chivalrously complex Southern boy and a transplanted heroine who accepts the mantle of reluctant social activist. Agnes Murphy-Pujols is a take-no-prisoners refugee from heartbreak and Brooklyn. Her mother, a professor, uproots the two of them just a few months from the end of Agnes's senior year and deposits them in a small town outside of Savannah, Georgia. On the one hand, Agnes is angry with her mother for causing the implosion of their life and family. On the other, she is glad to escape her inveterately cheating former boyfriend. The teen is a standout with her mother's Irish temper and her father's Dominican coloring, and Doyle Rahn's flirtatious attention within the first week at her new school moves her from a curiosity to a target of the school's best connected mean girl. The first half of the book is overfilled with "electric touches" and sexually frustrated banter. It is the second half that redeems the opening chapters. Doyle and Agnes defy tradition by organizing an alternative to the segregated proms sponsored by members of the community and, concurrently, struggle to find balance in a relationship that moves beyond physical to intimate. VERDICT Fans of teen romance will find a thought-provoking and nuanced story that transcends its initial dosage of cliched descriptions of lustful longing. A must-have for YA romance shelves.-Jodeana Kruse, R. A. Long High School, Longview, WA

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