Who's That Girl
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
This laugh-out-loud debut is filled with hilarious awkward encounters, a supportive LGBTQ organization, and too many cheesy lyrics to count—all with the compulsive readability of Audrey, Wait! and Boy Meets Boy. Junior Nattie McCullough has always been that under-the-radar straight girl who hangs out in the cafeteria with her gay-straight alliance friends. She’s never been the girl that gets the guy, let alone the girl that gets a hit song named after her.
But when last summer’s crush, smoking-hot musician Sebastian Delacroix—who has recently hit the mainstream big-time—returns home to play a local show, that’s just what she gets. He and his band, the Young Lungs, have written a chart-topping single—“Natalie”—which instantly makes Nattie second guess everything she thought about their awkward non-kiss at that June pool party. That it was horrific. That it meant nothing. That Sebastian never gave her another thought.
To help keep her mind off of Sebastian and his maybe-about-her, maybe-not-about-her song, Nattie throws herself into planning the school’s LGBTQIA dance. That proves problematic, too, when Nattie begins to develop feelings for her good friend Zach. With the song getting major airplay and her once-normal life starting to resemble the cover of a gossip magazine, Nattie is determined to figure out once and for all if her brief moment with Sebastian was the stuff love songs are made of—or just a one-hit wonder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nattie and her friends all belong to their suburban Philadelphia prep school's small gay-straight alliance, aka the OWLALGBTQIA; they aren't persecuted or harassed that would require being noticed. But that's just fine with junior Nattie, best friend/club founder Tess, and the two Zachs, one gay, one straight. Then the much cooler Sebastian Delacroix already graduated, and fronting a band that's getting airplay writes a song that might be about Nattie. They had a moment once, and he texts her occasionally, but does he like her? And what about the infinitely patient "Zach the Anarchist" (actually a vegetarian liberal)? Does he want more than friendship? Nattie would like to keep the Sebastian part of her life separate, but this proves increasingly impossible as the alliance struggles to sponsor a school dance that the popular kids will attend. Although the story can skew a bit too cute, debut author Thornburgh thoughtfully charts the tensions and loyalties among a solid group of friends. Rom-com-savvy readers won't be surprised by how things turn out, but getting there makes for sweetly offbeat and entertaining reading. Ages 13 up.