Planning Perfect

December 1, 2022
Felicity Becker lives for rules, organization, and Pinterest vision boards until her carefully charted path to the future falls out from under her. Ever since her freshman year, the White, Jewish Boston 16-year-old has devoted all her time and energy to the Social Friends Committee, helping to plan school events so that she can win the election for Junior Committee President, get accepted into a good college, and ultimately pursue a successful career. However, when she loses to laid-back lacrosse player Brody Wells, her archnemesis, she feels like her dreams are crumbling. Now Felicity's aspirations depend on planning the perfect wedding for her cheerfully chaotic mom so that she can impress one of the high-powered guests and secure an internship at New England's top event management agency. The wedding presents another unexpected opportunity: spending the entire summer with Swedish and Korean American Nancy Lim, the long-distance friend she met at a symposium for queer teens. Nancy invites Felicity to use her family's Vermont apple orchard as a destination wedding venue. In the midst of relationship-centered conflict, Felicity grapples with her ace-spectrum sexuality, her deepening feelings for Nancy, insecurities about her personality, and her overwhelming anxiety. An important aspect of her satisfying character growth comes from learning to let go of her shame around accepting help. High emotions and an impending deadline drive the story at a fast pace that fits Felicity's character. An engrossing, emotionally dynamic coming-of-age story. (Romance. 14-18)

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January 9, 2023
Sixteen-year-old Felicity Becker, who’s Jewish and white, dreams of becoming a highly sought-after event planner in this gleeful rom-com. When her original strategy to become president of her school’s event organizing committee are derailed, Felicity, hoping to impress the internship panel at a top event coordinating agency, endeavors to organize her flighty, social butterfly mother’s wedding. Contending with her mother’s lackadaisical attitude regarding nuptial arrangements and Felicity’s increasingly emotionally withdrawn bestie, Felicity finds stability and companionship in Swedish and Korean American friend Nancy Lim, who offers her family’s Vermont apple orchard as a wedding venue. Over the course of Felicity’s preparations, she spends more and more time with Nancy outside of wedding planning, swimming in a quarry and creating their own mini-golf course, forcing Felicity to navigate a burgeoning understanding of her sexuality amid matrimony-related turmoil. Chapter titles counting down the days until the wedding lend urgency. Via overwrought emotional conflict, tidy resolutions, and Felicity’s approachable, comedic narration, Neil (Once More with Chutzpah) deftly examines challenges surrounding dating and sexuality, intergenerational friction, and mental health. Ages 12–up. Agent: Lauren Spieller, Triada US.

February 1, 2023

Gr 7 Up-Aspiring event planner Felicity Becker, Jewish and 16, doesn't manage stress well. She just lost the election for Social Friends Committee President to her nemesis Brody Wells (described as having darker skin and cornrows), which is obviously disastrous for her future. Now she's desperate to make up for it by taking control of planning her mother's wedding and using the event as an audition for a prestigious internship with one of the guests. Her long-distance friend Nancy (who is biracial Korean/white, Swedish, and queer) offers her aunt's orchard as a venue, and they embark on a summer of wedding planning together. While Felicity anxiously fixates on work, Nancy tries to teach her letting go and having fun throughout the summer. Both are figuring out their feelings for each other. Felicity knows she's somewhere on the asexual spectrum, and wonders if Nancy would accept that in a partner. It's a sweet, feel-good, coming-of-age rom-com with satisfying character development and deeply insightful, much needed ace representation. Religious traditions and family culture are represented throughout, including the wedding, which mixes the Jewish and Catholic traditions of the bride and groom. VERDICT A solid purchase for YA collections.-Kayla Fontaine

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2023
Grades 8-11 *Starred Review* Felicity thinks that her mom, Hannah, has always done things in the wrong order: she sold an app, conceived Felicity via sperm donor, and now spends her days ghostwriting superhero novelizations, sleeping in, and dyeing her hair bright colors. Felicity, by contrast, is organized and overinvolved, even though extreme stress landed her in the hospital over midterms. When Hannah gets engaged, Felicity plans to throw her a perfect wedding--one that will also please Felicity's traditional Jewish Bubbe and land Felicity an internship at a major event-planning company. When Nancy, Felicity's friend from an LGBTQ seminar, offers her family's apple orchard as a venue, friendship blooms into something more. But Felicity, who is biromantic and asexual, has no idea what an actual relationship would look like for her or if she could handle the expectations any potential partner might have. Felicity's mind isn't an easy place to be: her anxiety can be overwhelming, and she doesn't always get the help she needs. But her developing relationship with Nancy rings profoundly true, and this is a tender, lovingly depicted capture of self-discovery and dating while asexual--one that is infrequently portrayed for readers of any age. For that reason alone, stock up.

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