Limelight
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Feb 24, 2026
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Fame meets Rent in this powerful YA debut about a boy who must reconcile with his identity and insecurity as he steps into the spotlight, from Broadway star Andrew Keenan-Bolger.
The only thing standing between Danny and his dreams is…everything.
For fifteen years, Danny Victorio has kept his head down, kept his mouth shut, and kept everyone out. But an audition for Manhattan’s most prestigious arts school offers him a chance to escape Staten Island—and his crumbling family—for good.
If he doesn’t screw everything up.
At LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, Danny is thrust into a world of fierce talent and even fiercer ambition. As he navigates overwhelming expectations, the ghosts of his past, and, for the first time, real friendship, Danny can’t shake the question: Where do I belong…if I belong at all?
Set against the gritty, vibrant backdrop of 1996 New York City—where peep-show palaces were giving way to Disney stores, “Club Kids” ruled the nightlife scene, and a new musical called Rent was driving teens to sleep on the seediest sidewalks of Times Square in hopes of a ticket—Limelight is a story about discovering your voice, finding your family, and figuring out who, and where, you’re really meant to be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Broadway actor Keenan-Bolger (the Jack & Louisa series) celebrates the healing capabilities of theater in his lightly fantastical solo debut set in 1996. The life of Staten Island 16-year-old Danny Victorio is turned upside down when he and his mother are forced to flee his physically abusive father and move into the apartment once occupied by Danny's late uncle. Hoping to relieve his mother of the financial strain of Catholic school tuition (and escape the bullying he experiences daily), Danny auditions for—and is accepted into—LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts, thanks in part to gentle encouragement from his late uncle's ghost. At school, he meets effervescent classmate Christian Geronimo, a dance student and drag queen in training who takes Danny under his wing. Soon Danny finds himself absorbed into a tight-knit friend group and realizes that, for the first time, he feels that he can finally explore his own identity and decide who he wants to be. Somber close third-person narration centers Danny's raw emotions and rocky path toward self-actualization, along which he must navigate issues brought about by the AIDS epidemic and personal trauma. Sometimes-uneven characterization is buoyed by Danny and Christian's stirring relationship and the vivid metropolitan setting. Danny is white; Christian is Filipino American. Ages 12–up.
