Booksmart 17-year-old Jay Dupresh has one goal: get a full-ride scholarship to Northwestern to honor his older brother, who gave up his college dreams to help support their financially struggling family. On top of his collegiate desires, however, Jay also struggles with the need to be accepted and liked. After a charged encounter with 18-year-old Leroy, the younger brother of the Black Diamonds gang's leader, who intervenes when homophobic bullies target Jay, the two develop an electric friendship that soon blossoms into tentative courtship. Meanwhile, Leroy is wrestling with his own challenges: a run-in with a biased teacher sees Leroy on the verge of expulsion, so he recruits Jay's help in applying for a GED program. But when an unexpected attack leaves both boys injured, it becomes evident that there are greater threats to their fledgling relationship than a mutual fear of rejection. Miller's debut is laudable for its intimate portrayal of a Black community combatting systemic violence by creating their own institutions of support via the Black Diamonds, whose initially intimidating outward reputation begets a collaborative organization devoted to protection. Moreover, Miller sketches a panorama of queer Black characters who, even under threat, not only survive but thrive. Ages 13–up. (Nov.)

Gr 9 Up—Miller's ambitious debut novel about queer Black boys in Savannah, GA, defies genre categorization. Part teenage love triangle, part conspiracy thriller, part identity narrative, and part gang violence retribution story, it races chaotically to its conclusion and ultimately leaves readers unfulfilled and vaguely confused. The novel alternates between two first-person narrators—Jay and Leroy—as they recount their burgeoning love story amid the backdrop of a community gang war orchestrated by unknown forces. Despite the presence of gang violence, the Savannah described herein is almost completely alien to reality: a utopia where Black queer boys and girls face almost no homophobia from their teenage peers or members of the community, despite openly pursuing each other. It seems too pervasive to not be deliberate, as if the author is attempting to create a parallel universe where these bigotries don't exist. However, the author's decision to gloss over the struggles of Southern queer people with homophobia is puzzling when it is revealed through plot events that bigotry is anything but absent from this fictional Savannah. VERDICT Full of beautiful prose and characters who laugh in the face of toxic masculinity, Miller's debut has a lot of promise—especially in terms of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ representation—but uneven pacing and overly complicated plotlines keep it from its full potential.—Amy Shaw