Then Everything Happens at Once
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- 8,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
From the Lambda Award–winning author of Girl Mans Up comes an empowering, sex-positive coming-of-age story about a teen exploring first love and desire as her rocky relationship with her own body and a pandemic threaten to sabotage everything. Perfect for fans of Fat Chance, Charlie Vega and Cool for the Summer. Now in paperback!
Baylee has never been kissed but she wants to do way more than that. She’s had a huge crush on her gorgeous best friend and neighbor, Freddie, for years, but since she doesn’t look like his usual type, the judgmental voice in her head tells her he’ll never see her as more than a friend. It feels like she’ll spend the rest of high school fantasizing on the sidelines while everyone else dates and hooks up.
Then Baylee meets Alex online and she starts to fall for this sweet, funny barista who likes her just as she is. It’s new, electric, and all-consuming to be around Alex. But when Freddie makes a move on Baylee and a virus shuts the world down, Baylee finds herself torn.
Everything is happening at once, and she is left navigating the messy waters of love and desire. It helps that she’s observed her friends’ relationship drama so she knows exactly what mistakes not to make . . . right?
This sophomore novel from M-E Girard centers a fat, confident girl going after what she wants and learning to love herself along the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
White-cued Toronto native Baylee, 16, has had a crush for years on her neighbor, Freddie, described as having brown skin. As much as she craves romance and intimacy, Baylee doesn't believe anyone as conventionally attractive as Freddie could be into "a fat girl like me." These same insecurities cause her to doubt her white-coded online friend Alex's flirtations. When it suddenly seems like Freddie is returning her feelings, the Covid-19 pandemic hits, forcing Baylee into quarantine. During lockdown, she begins a sexually intimate relationship with Freddie and wrestles with feelings of guilt as she continues to pursue a romantic relationship with Alex. Myriad secondary interpersonal conflicts complicate matters further, including Baylee's responsibility protecting her 12-year-old sister Rebecca, who has cerebral palsy, from the virus, and her fraying relationships with her mother and Sri Lankan Canadian best friend Lara. Baylee is a headstrong and decisive protagonist whose seemingly boundless confidence realistically juxtaposes her deep-rooted insecurities. Girard (Girl Mans Up) portrays Baylee's mistakes and triumphs with nuance while tackling negative self-talk and anti-fat rhetoric amid unprecedented crisis in this honest and believable portrait of a teen navigating her sexual awakening. Ages 14–up.