This Train Is Being Held

In a charming #OwnVoices novel by Williams (Water in May), a ballet dancer and a rising baseball star find common ground and romance via the New York City subway. Upper East Sider Isa, who attends a private school, pursues ballet despite the disapproval of her tempestuous Cuban mother, a perpetual board member who’s struggling with her husband’s layoff. Dominican Alex, who attends school in Washington Heights and travels between his divorced parents, would rather write poetry than play ball, but his former-Yankee father is pushing him to go professional. Both teens are intensely driven, and both have stormy home lives they’d rather keep private. Yet despite their avowals that neither has time for a relationship, their random subway encounters, which begin when Alex holds the door for Isa, evolve into planned time together. When Isa’s stability at home begins to dissolve, her attempts to keep up a strong front drive a wedge between them until they find themselves thrown together in a crisis. Demanding parents, experiences of racism, mental-health challenges, gang violence, and the fallout of a lost job blend seamlessly with moments of poetry to create a realistic and complex romance. Ages 13–up. [em](Feb.) [/em]