Turning

Three months after falling from a roof, teenage Genie, recently featured on the cover of a dance magazine as a promising Black ballerina, is learning to navigate her disability. Paralyzed from the waist down, she sees herself as “the angry Black girl in a wheelchair,” and pushes away from relationships with best friend Hannah, a Latinx ballerina who encourages Genie’s talent for choreography, and her own mother, who is seven years into sobriety. Genie’s especially furious with “very jealous and very needy” ex-boyfriend Nolan, also Black, who is trying to push his way back into her life by threatening to tell Genie’s mother about the abortion Genie had before her fall. The protagonist’s emotional scars also jeopardize her growing relationship with Kyle, a brown-skinned former gymnast who is relearning to walk and talk following a motorcycle accident. While Genie can come across as one-note, Smith depicts via an unbridled first-person narration her growing proficiency adjusting to her emotional and physical needs, her deep-rooted love of dance, and her recurring disbelief at how swiftly her life changed, while suspensefully revealing the nature of Nolan’s role in Genie’s fall. Ages 12–up. Agent: Saba Sulaiman, Talcott Notch Literary. (Mar.)