Only on the Weekends
A must-read queer love story
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
Mack. Karim. Finlay. Mack never thought he'd find love, let alone with two people. Will he make the right choice? And can love last for ever? A must-read queer love story for fans of Sex Education, written in verse by Dean Atta.
Fifteen-year-old Mack is a hopeless romantic - he blames the films he's grown up watching. He has liked Karim for as long as he can remember, and is ecstatic when Karim becomes his boyfriend - it feels like love.
But when Mack's dad gets a job on a film in Scotland, Mack has to move, and soon hediscovers how painful love can be. It's horrible being so far away from Karim, but the worst part is that Karim doesn't make the effort to visit. Love shouldn't be only on the weekends.
Then, when Mack meets actor Finlay on a film set, he experiences something powerful, a feeling like love at first sight. How long until he tells Karim - and when will his old life and new life collide?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an emotional free verse novel, Atta (The Black Flamingo) follows the tumultuous love life of a gay Londoner of Nigerian Yoruba descent. Nearly 16 and self-conscious about the fatphobia he experiences, narrator Mackintosh "Mack" Fadayomi is shocked when his schoolmate, Black British basketball star Karim, of Egyptian descent, expresses romantic interest in Mack. Karim is closeted, preferring "to do things quietly," and his inconsistent attention confuses Mack. Just as they start finding a balance, Mack's film director father announces a temporary move for the family, to Glasgow. There, Mack meets the white Scottish star of his dad's project, transmasculine teen Finlay, whose flirting (in a voice conveyed in Scottish dialect) excites him. While Mack and Karim struggle to make their way forward, Mack justifies a growing emotional affair with Fin, until forced to make a decision. Prose-like verse traces a slow-burn love triangle that avoids excusing Mack's actions, centering a protagonist whose emotional arc unpacks themes of young love and self-acceptance alongside intersections of body image, gender identity, race, and sexuality. Ages 14–up.
