Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster

April 4, 2022
Mosqueda’s whirlwind debut features a love tangle set in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. Sixteen-year-old Chicana Magdalena “Maggie” Gonzalez is “good at life but bad at love.” Openly bisexual and romantically closed off, she insists that friendships and her planned future career as a photographer are all she needs. But those strong relationships offer too many options when, needing a date to her sister’s quinceañera, Maggie can’t decide who to ask. There’s longtime best friend Amanda Guevara, who Maggie was in love with in middle school; Maggie’s amicable and overly flirtatious ex-boyfriend, Matthew Maldonado; and new girl Daniela “Dani” Mendoza, who has her own romantic insecurities. She hopes that throwing herself into a school photography project will help her come to a decision, but she quickly discovers that love, relationships, and the disasters they often present can’t be navigated in photography’s two-dimensional plane. While the teens’ voices sometimes feel overly adult, and outdated pop culture references fail to support the modern setting, the story’s themes of honesty and establishing personal boundaries are its strength. Frank discussion of toxic relationships and conflict resolution will endear readers looking for healthier romances in their narratives. Most characters cue as Chicanx. Ages 14–up. Agent: Lauren MacLeod, Strothman Agency.