Anna-Marie McLemore (Dark and Deepest Red) and Tehlor Kay Mejia (We Set the Dark on Fire) team up to craft a genre-bending friendship story complete with aliens and beauty pageants.
In Miss Meteor, former best friends Lita Perez and Chicky Quintanilla are reunited through a zany plot to win their town's beauty pageant. Chicky wants to be Lita's manager for the competition to get back at a girl who has bullied Chicky ever since people discovered she might be queer; Lita wants to win so she can accomplish her childhood dream before turning back into stardust. Lita and her guardian landed in Meteor, Ariz., when the meteorite that the town is named after crashed to Earth. The teen is slowly returning to the galaxy from whence she came and hopes to win the Miss Meteor crown first, a feat usually reserved for the thin, blonde and blue-eyed--not the Latinx-presenting curvy and brown like Lita and Chicky. Along the way, the two repair their friendship, combat racism and classism and forge new relationships with two boys in their own slow burn romances.
The dual voice narrative is filled with humor and fresh dialogue. The Quintanillas' diner is themed after another Quintanilla--Selena, the Tex-Mex superstar (no relation). And Chicky's beauty queen sisters offer much of the comic relief as they try to doll up Lita. The sliver of magical realism ratchets up the stakes, as Lita struggles to find a solution for her disappearing act. Chicky's coming out as pansexual is a stirring moment, and Lita's romance with a trans boy is especially sweet. The insidious effect of microaggressions and thinly veiled racism is also woven throughout, giving this seemingly light novel an added layer of empowerment. --Shelley Diaz, supervising librarian, BookOps: New York Public Library & Brooklyn Public Library