We feel that YA novels usually are more layered and tackle
many more subjects than the regular novels for not-so-young. There is also more
idealism in the characters, which is always nice.
Sid Rubin, a nerd and coding-queen, has a group of
five close friends – Imani, Jimmy, Ari, and Vikram. When Sid sets eyes
on her Mystery Dream Girl (MDG), the group gets behind her effort to find the green-eyed
beauty. MDG is Ava who turns out to be deaf. A determined Sid decides to learn
sign language and Imani accompanies her for the classes. The ‘posse’ is with
Sid every step of the way till Sid and Ava start dating – and Sid is unable to
balance her romantic and friendship relationships. A snowball fight in Central
Park which includes Sid, Ava, Sid’s friends and Ava’s bestie, Joe leads to Imani
tumbling down and landing on a skeletal hand. Turns out to be eight skeletons
literally chained together and the group sets out to find out who they were
even as Ava leaves Sid and Sid struggles to get back her footing with her
friends – especially with best friend, Imani.
Though the books starts off with the romance, the mystery and
group dynamic is more the focus. However, Ava is an intriguing character. We’d
love to know her better and so, so want a happy romance and life for her. Though
Ava leaves Sid, we empathised with Ava more than with Sid. We found Ava
completely justifiable and justified. The other character that we totally loved
was Imani. (A side note: we are expected a romance between Imani and Sid soon.)
And yes, the whole ‘posse’ of friends is also cool. We loved the writing style.
YA novels tend to have youth-speak, created new words, lots of pop culture
references, and in this case a huge amount of extra bits of interestingness
thrown in because of Sid’s propensity for digressions which make them highly
readable and entertaining. We loved Imani’s sentiment of returning respect to
the unknown people they’ve literally stumbled upon (that’s the idealism we
spoke about earlier).
This is a fast moving, very entertaining YA read.
⭐⭐⭐
