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Busy Day, Busy People by Tibor Gergely
Camp Creepy by Kiersten White
Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill, Volume 1 by Ren Eguchi and Kevin Chen (Translator)
Cat Raise the Dead by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Dead-End Detective by Amanda Flower and Laura Faye Smith (Narrator)
The Enchanted Bridge by Zetta Elliott and Cherise Harris (Illustrations)
Dinosaur Sanctuary, Volume 1 by Itaru Kinoshita
Friday I'm in Love by Camryn Garrett To Fudge or Not to Fudge by Nancy CoCo and Vanessa Johansson (Narrator)
The Gathering by Dan Poblocki
The Ghost and the Stolen Tears by Cleo Coyle and Traci Odom (Narrator)
Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse by Chris Riddell
Hidden Pictures by Carolyn Keene
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky
Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire
Mission to Murder by Lynn Cahoon and Susan Boyce (Narrator)
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter, Volume 1 by Kazuki Irodori
Outbreak Diaries by Jason Turner
The Promised Neverland 2 by Kaiu Shirai, Posuka Demizu (Illustrator), and Luise Steggewentz (Translator)
Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling by Elise Bryant
She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat, Volume 1 by Sakaomi Yuzaki and Caleb David Cook (Translator)
Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, Volume 2 by Keigo Maki
Sorry, Bro by Taleen Voskuni
Spy x Family, Volume 7 by Tatsuya Endo
The Starlite Drive-In by Marjorie Reynolds
Till Death Do Us Port by Kate Lansing and Brooke Hoover (Narrator)
The Vanderbeekers on the Road by Karina Yan Glaser
Victory City by Salman Rushdie

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Friday I'm in Love : 03/24/23

Friday I'm in Love

Friday I'm in Love by Camryn Garrett (2023) takes it's title from the Cure song, one of many older songs referenced in this YA novel. Mahalia Harris missed the chance to have a Sweet Sixteen party, so she's decided to plan a Coming Out Party for herself.

Mahalia has three problems. Her first one is the budget. Mahalia has a job after school and she has to save from what she earns. Although her mother has promised to match whatever she saves, she still knows she'll have to be extremely frugal.

Her second problem is her BFF Naomi. She has money to spare and no sense of how to do things on a budget. It's hard to plan with her when Naomi expects to just buy whatever catches her eye.

Her final problem is Siobhan, the cute girl from Ireland. Mahalia is head over heels for her the first time they met. But she has a boyfriend and Mahalia just can't find the right words to express how she feels. Nor does she know if she should.

The novel unfolds over the final months of the school year: April, May, and June. Although it's a relatively short amount of time, I did find myself wanting less focus on the mundane details of school life. Of course I'm not the target audience and were I younger, I might have found those scenes more relatable.

The one place where I felt the novel fell short was in its setting. Mahalia lives in San Diego, and near UCSD. That's where I grew up. But there's nothing in the way of details, landmarks, or culture that pegs the setting as actually being San Diego. The city could have been anywhere.

Four stars

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