A sweet and swoony YA rom-com about two friends making a pact to find summer romance like they’ve seen in the movies—and finding love where they least expect it along the way!
THE SUMMER LOVE STRATEGY
by Ray Stoeve
Abrams, May 2024
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)
Hayley always has a crush. The problem is, her crushes never like her back. After her latest unrequited love—a girl from her basketball team—gets a boyfriend, she decides she’s done falling for girls who are unavailable. Her best friend, Talia, wants romance too, but rarely gets crushes on anyone, and she’s tired of watching Hayley get her heart stomped on over and over. So the two girls make a pact: they’ll help each other find summer love by putting themselves in situations that always lead to romance in movies.
To help carry out their summer love strategy, they make a list of all the places they could find their real-life rom-com: the beach, the Pride parade, the pool, a MUNA concert, and a party. But as they go to each place and try to find the one, it seems like they just can’t catch a break—they don’t know how to talk to cute strangers, someone mistakes Hayley as straight, and Hayley does a truly unfortunate DIY haircut (that she cannot be held responsible for––it was a crisis!). But when Talia and Hayley finally manage to score dates, will they be able to get out of their own way and really dive into the romances they deserve? Or is summer love not as far off as Hayley thought?
“This excellent addition to the slew of YA friends-to-lovers romance novels offers a nuanced portrayal of an autistic sapphic trans girl in Talia and a lesbian with ADHD and anxiety in Hayley…[The novel] genuinely shines when it zeroes in on Hayley and Talia’s friendship and blossoming romance. Readers will feel like they’re in a teen summer romance themselves.” –Booklist
« Hayley and Talia’s story has all the butterfly-worthy moments of first love…Readers will appreciate that neurodivergence is normalized and represented positively in the novel: In addition to Talia, two other members of their friend group are autistic. A charming friends-to-lovers summer romance.” –Kirkus
« THE SUMMER LOVE STRATEGY is a bear hug in book form; it’s a love story within a love story. Intimacy takes so many beautifully complicated forms here. These are friends who care enough to carve out space for each other’s differences, even as they feel their way through shifting relationship dynamics. Stoeve explores what it means to find new ways to love a person you know by heart—and they tackle it with such specificity and care. This one’s going to make so many people feel seen. » –Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Ray Stoeve is the author of the young adult novel Between Perfect and Real, which received a starred review and was a 2021 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and Arden Grey. They also contributed to the young adult anthology Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance. They received a 2016–2017 Made at Hugo House Fellowship and created the YA/MG Trans and Nonbinary Voices Masterlist, a database that tracks all books in those age categories written by trans authors about trans characters. When they’re not writing, they can be found gardening, making art in other mediums, or hiking their beloved Pacific Northwest.
Sixteen-year-old Arden Grey is struggling. Her mother has left their family, her father and her younger brother won’t talk about it, and a classmate, Tanner, keeps harassing her about her sexuality—which isn’t even public. (She knows she likes girls romantically, but she thinks she might be asexual.) At least she’s got her love of film photography and her best and only friend, Jamie, to help her cope. Then Jamie, who is trans, starts dating Caroline, and suddenly he isn’t so reliable. Arden’s insecurity about their friendship grows. She starts to wonder if she’s jealous or if Jamie’s relationship with Caroline is somehow unhealthy—and it makes her reconsider how much of her relationship with her absent mom wasn’t okay, too. Filled with big emotions, first loves, and characters navigating toxic relationships, Ray Stoeve’s honest and nuanced novel is about finding your place in the world and seeking out the love and community that you deserve.
Dean Foster knows he’s a trans guy. He’s watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he’s a lesbian—including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a “nontraditional” Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now––not just on the stage, but everywhere in his life. Dean knows what he needs to do. Can playing a role help Dean be his true self?