In their nearly flawless first co-written YA novel, Olivia A. Cole (Ariel Crashes a Train) and Ashley Woodfolk (The Beauty That Remains) reveal that revenge isn't always a dish best served cold; in their talented hands, it's actually heartwarming.
Beautiful, biracial Maia Moon is a makeup influencer, captain of the debate team, the marching band drum major, and newly single. Well, sort of. She has broken up with Tatum Westbrook three times in the last six months. In that time, she's been kissing badass white lesbian Beau Carl in the supply closet at Beau's job and flirting with Charm Montgomery, her Black trigonometry tutor. But when Maia accepts Tatum's elaborate promposal, Beau and Charm learn that Maia's been playing them both. The teens form a plan to "make her feel what [they] feel." Charm, who has only kissed one girl, will take "Lesbian Lessons" from Beau to ensure that Maia will say yes when Charm asks Maia to prom--where Charm will dump her. To cement the plan's success, Beau and Charm also create a few rules, including, of course, "don't fall in love." Readers will likely know what's coming: as Beau teaches Charm the skills she'll need to win Maia's heart, they realize that seeing their plan through will be a lot harder than expected.
Call Your Boyfriend is a smart, buoyant YA romance. Cole and Woodfolk clearly respect rom-com formulas and tropes, and expertly demonstrate how to deploy them with skill, using formulas (the revenge plot, the unlikely allies) as narrative scaffolding to firmly ground a novel that becomes satisfying, even reassuring, in its predictability. Beau, Charm, and Maia are all types (the cool tough girl, the shy brainy girl, the perfect popular girl), but Cole and Woodfolk's most clever technique is to not try to subvert them. Instead, they adopt a "yes and" approach, employing subplots and secondary characters to add dimension and complexity to their central characters. Beau is in a garage band--the epitome of cool--but readers see her grapple with writer's block; Charm enthusiastically supports her best friend's attempted romantic conquests, though she is too shy to admit her feelings for Beau. What's better, Cole and Woodfolk make it all look utterly effortless.
Call Your Boyfriend easily fits on a shelf--alongside Becky Albertalli's Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and Alice Oseman's Heartstopper series--of the 21st century's most beloved contemporary rom-coms for teen readers. --Stephanie Appell, freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: This smart, buoyant YA romance offers an expert demonstration of deploying rom-com formulas as two girls team up to get revenge on the popular girl who broke both their hearts.