Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute
by Talia Hibbert
High School    Joy Revolution/Random    336 pp.
1/23    9780593482339    $19.99
Paper ed.  9780593482353    $13.99
e-book ed.  9780593482346    $8.99

Former best friends Celine and Bradley are now enemies and academic rivals. When they both jump at the opportunity to participate in a wilderness competition with a scholarship attached and end up on the same team, they are forced to work together to achieve their individual goals. They also work through what tore them apart in the first place while realizing that there could be more to their feelings. In her debut YA novel, British romance writer ­Hibbert offers an entertaining, laugh-out-loud tale featuring memorable Black characters. The alternating first-person narration of the England and Scotland–set story allows for ­introspection and reveals the nuances of the multifaceted protagonists. Popular jock Bradley is bisexual and lives with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which the author includes without ­centering or treating as problematic. Celine, struggling with ­abandonment issues related to her father, can be abrupt and emotionally closed off but is also a compelling and amusing character. Along with a constellation of well-drawn secondary ­players, Bradley and Celine’s skillfully written romantic banter make this an engrossing ­rom-com.

From the March/April 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.