Skin Hunger

Starred review from September 11, 2017
This note-perfect sequel to Escaping Indigo builds on the first book’s strengths and delivers on all its promises. Drummer Ava is on a plane flying toward her grandmother, who needs help moving into an assisted living facility, and away from everything she loves—her home, her successful musical career, and her best friend and fellow bandmate, Tuck—when she meets Cara, a kindly dancer who just might upend everything. Ava relatably struggles with a sense of validation for her identity in several directions; she doesn’t feel she’s “bi enough”; she’s not very close with her well-meaning, conventional family; and she can’t share her feelings for Tuck without risking the loss of their relationship and perhaps even wrecking the band. The opportunity for romantic happiness with Cara, and for a relationship that’s more than a gratifying one-night stand, forces Ava to confront her doubts and insecurities and find the true value of the life she has. Lang’s novel is gentle and tenderly crafted, with earned happiness in an ending that’s carefully designed to fit these characters and their lives.

Starred review from September 15, 2017
When we're fearfully carrying a deep personal secret, we hide that part of us from others and, often, ourselves. Ava carries two, her clandestine love for her band mate, Tuck, who's with another girl, and her hidden bisexuality. These are distressing, despite Ava's passion for touring and drumming with the up-and-coming Escaping Indigo; their performances are the only time she's fully present and alive. When a chance meeting with Cara sparks a connection, Ava's long-dormant feelings surface, not for a hasty hookup but for something far more meaningful. She is thrilled, terrified, and, most dangerously, hopeful. But while she visits family for two weeks to help relocate her grandmother, Cara flies cross-country, back home to her dance studio and her life. Is destiny laughing? Ava, feeling hopeful, nervous, and guilty, and Cara, looking as uncertain as Ava feels, must part ways for good or risk an uncertain, long-distance relationship. Lang's (Escaping Indigo, 2017) second meditative, absorbing, compelling, and universally relatable novel in her series about band members is, like other Riptide titles, more emotionally reverberating than many other LGBT or mainstream romances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)