The Flipside of Perfect

Adelaide Josephine Jepsen Beloise, 17, who is white, spends each school year with her mother, stepfather, and two younger sisters in Michigan, and every summer with her father and older twin siblings in Florida. The summer after her senior year, she’s overdue for a break from life as AJ, “all-around overachiever” and eldest sister to mercurial, athletically gifted Marnie as well as rising country music star Lilli. In Florida, she can be carefree, youngest sister Della, but when she arrives to find her father’s fishing store in dire financial straits, she begins to question whether her bifurcated life is sustainable, and if it’s what she truly wants. Della’s growing interest in Jude Zeigler, her white summer coworker and longtime nemesis, provides flirtatious levity while serving as foil to AJ’s on-again, off-again Michigan relationship. Certain plot points, including familial secrets and her mother’s lack of boundaries, feel unresolved in Reinhardt’s snapshot of a single summer, but the nuanced family dynamics, gratifying enemies-to-lovers romance, and well-rendered depictions of her stressors—her sense of responsibility toward her siblings, the weight of her mother’s expectations, and anxiety surrounding inevitable changes—are richly drawn. Ages 13–up. [em](Apr.) [/em]