When You're Brave Enough
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A heartfelt, gorgeously written debut middle grade novel about best friends, first crushes, and coming out—perfect for fans of Kyle Lukoff and Jake Maia Arlow.
Before she moved from Austin to Rhode Island, everybody knew Lacey as one half of an inseparable duo: Lacey-and-Grace, best friends since they were toddlers. Grace and her moms were practically family. But at school, being lumped together with overeager, worm-obsessed, crushes-on-everyone Grace meant Lacey never quite fit in—and that’s why at her new middle school, Lacey plans to reinvent herself. This time, she’s going to be cool. She’s going to be normal.
At first, everything seems to go as planned. Lacey makes new friends right away, she finds a rabbi to help her prepare for the bat mitzvah that got deprioritized by her parents in the chaos of the move, and she even gets cast in the lead role of the eighth-grade musical. Which is when things start to get stressful, because it turns out the students at her new school have a long-standing, unofficial tradition: No matter what the show is, in the final performance, the leads always kiss for real.
Lacey’s never kissed anyone before—she’s not even sure she’s ever had a crush. And in Bye, Bye, Birdie, there are a few different co-lead kiss possibilities for Lacey to choose from. There’s confident, cocky Andre. There’s sweet, friendly Jaden. And then there’s the other new girl at school: dryly funny, impossibly cool Violet.
But while her new friends and older sister create whiteboard wall charts and botched field trip schemes to help her decide, suddenly Lacey can’t stop thinking about Grace, who she was so sure she wanted to leave behind. When Grace comes back into her life, Lacey needs to decide if she's brave enough to be who she really is, in front of the person who matters most.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Jewish eighth grader adjusts to a new environment while navigating societal pressure to uphold the status quo in Bendheim's radiant debut. Though 13-year-old Lacey is devastated to leave her best friend Grace behind in Texas to move to Rhode Island, she's excited to join her new school's vibrant theater program. Despite her worries about not fitting in, Lacey quickly befriends fellow castmates, and surprises everyone—including herself—by landing the lead role in the musical. Her excitement sours upon learning about the more than 50-years-long tradition of the male and female leads sharing a kiss onstage during the final performance—the only costar she's interested in is fellow new girl Violet. As opening night approaches, Lacey mourns the widening emotional rift between her and Grace, grapples with strained family dynamics, particularly between herself and her older sister, and decides to pursue becoming a bat mitzvah, along the way reflecting on her relationship with Judaism and tradition. Careful, attentive plotting centers one teen's reckoning with intense emotions surrounding first love, self-reinvention, and maintaining genuine connections across long distances and during times of transition. Assured prose relays Lacey's aching and empathetic first-person narration across this relatable story of belonging and becoming. Main characters read as white. Ages 10–14.
