Pride or Die

As the founder of the Texas Hillview High LGBTQ+ Club, 17-year-old Eleanor Finkel has spent most of her high school career holding the group together through sheer force of will. The club is important to her, and she wanted to create a safe space “so that people like us could find one another, support one another, and know that they’re not alone in the world.” But with graduation on the horizon, she’s struggling to figure out how to bring in new people to keep the alliance going. Then Eleanor and three other club members—Tyler, Salim, and Noah—are implicated in the violent assault of cheerleader Kenley. Now the four teens, with help from on-the-mend Kenley, must work together to clear their names or risk jeopardizing the club’s—and their own—future. Using arch prose, debut author Montblanc candidly depicts the queer protagonists’ experiences living “in a town full of ‘traditional’ families with bigoted values.” An unlikely romance and splashes of gallows humor add playful energy to this clever mystery. Eleanor is white, and supporting characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 13–up. (Apr.)