I'm Not Dying with You Tonight

Written by: Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal 

First line: "Waiting for Black in on your agenda, not mine," LaShunda barks as we leave the building. 

Why you should read this book: Lena, a stylish, popular Black girl with a best friend and an older boyfriend and big plans for her evening, and Campbell, the new kid in school, a white girl who's given up hope after being abandoned by her family and cut from the track team, find themselves unlikely allies when a high school football game erupts into violence. Running from the police at the football field, they head downtown, right into a bigger and much more violent riot, knowing they better stick together if they're going to survive the night. Told from two points of view, written by two different authors, this sadly realistic live-through-the-night narrative highlights issues of racial and socioeconomic inequality, family ties, young love, and the understanding that we each have to work at understanding other people's perspectives. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: A lot of violence, possibly senseless, but not gratuitous.

We Are Totally Normal

Written by: Rahul Kankia

First line: The music in the car was so loud that my teeth vibrated.

Why you should read this book: Nandan hangs out with the popular kids, even though he doesn't really like any of them except Avani, who he used to hook up with but doesn't anymore because sex is weird; right now, while his bro-friends are trying to get Nandan laid, Nandan is really focused on helping out his weird buddy Dave, who is totally adorable and knows less about girls than Nandan does. But Nandan's efforts to help Dave get a girlfriend lead to Nandan having drunken sex with Dave, and now he has to figure out whether he's actually gay or what, because he loves Dave, but he doesn't really love having sex with him, and he doesn't want people to think he's just being queer to get attention, or to get closer to Avani. This is a very inwardly-focused story, rife with Nandan's dissection of high school social dynamics, relationships, and, of course, sex, which covers honest ground about sex and queerness that doesn't often hit the page in YA novels.

Gone Crazy in Alabama

Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia

First line: Vonetta, Fern, and I didn't sleep well last night or the night before.

Why you should read this book: School's out and the Gaither girls are off again, this time headed to Alabama, where Big Ma has returned to live with her own mother. Alabama is even more different from New York than Oakland was, and Black people in the south still live by different rules that clash with the ideals they learned in California: how can they even be related to a sheriff who's white and in the KKK? Delphine, who has always taken care of her family, finds that she has to deal with all the same problems, plus a whole passel of new issues including a decades-old family feud, the clashing of the old and the new, unpleasant chores, the return of their once-beloved uncle, an amorous neighbor, overt racism, and really, really bad weather.

Why you shouldn't read this book: While it ends well, I felt this one was a bit sadder/scarier than the first two books in the trilogy.

P.S. Be Eleven

Written by: Rita Williams-Garcia

First line: You'd think that after flying six-odd hours from New York to Oakland, then flying six-odd hours back, Vonetta, Fern, and I would be world-class travelers, and those bumps and dips would be nothing.

Why you should read this book: Picking up where One Crazy Summer leaves off, this book follows Delphine and her sisters as they return to New York, much changed from the girls who went to visit their mother at the beginning of the summer, thanks to their new revolutionary mindset. But New York has changed too: their father has a girlfriend, their uncle is a different person since his return from Viet Nam, and while their grandmother has stayed the same, they can't help but see Big Ma in a different light after hanging out with the Black Panthers. While still trying to manage her sisters, Delphine has to navigate a new grade, a very new teacher, new boys, her very serious feelings about a new boy band called The Jackson Five, and a series of letters from her unusual mother, which don't feel very helpful now, but might be later on.

Why you shouldn't read this book: I thought it was a little disingenuous of the mother to constantly tell Delphine to "be eleven" when Delphine became the parentalized child solely because her mom didn't want to be a parent.