Long Story Short

In Serena Kaylor's sparkling debut, a homeschooled math genius finds herself out of her element at a theater summer camp and learns that life—and love—can’t be lived by the (text)book.

Growing up homeschooled in Berkeley, California, Beatrice Quinn has always dreamed of discovering new mathematical challenges at Oxford University. She always thought the hardest part would be getting in, not convincing her parents to let her go. But while math has always made sense to Beatrice, making friends is a problem she hasn’t been able to solve. Before her parents will send her halfway across the world, she has to prove she won’t spend the next four years hiding in the library. The compromise: the Connecticut Shakespearean Summer Academy and a detailed list of teenage milestones to check off. If Beatrice wants to live out her Oxford dream, she has to survive six weeks in the role of “normal teenager” first.

Unfortunately, hearts and hormones don't follow any equations. When she's adopted by a group of eclectic theater kids, and immediately makes an enemy of the popular—and annoyingly gorgeous—British son of the camp’s founders, Beatrice quickly learns that relationships are trickier than calculus. With her future on the line, this girl genius stumbles through illicit parties, double dog dares, and more than her fair share of Shakespeare. But before the final curtain falls, will Beatrice realize there’s more to life than what she can find in the pages of a book?

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laur gluchie

I've received an Advance Reader's Copy of this book through a giveaway hosted by the publisher. This has not affected my rating in any way.

Trigger Warning: Ableism & discrimination

Unpopular Opinion: This book sucked.

Okay, maybe that's a bit too harsh, but if you were reading a book about changing perfectly fine traits that you have, you'd feel pretty offended too.

I'll rephrase. Unpopular Opinion: I have some very, very choice words to say about this book.

My rant starts here.

While it didn't specify, but it was implied that Beatrice is possibly autistic (ex: having a unchanging meal plan for each day- page 21, 86, not understanding most social cues- page, 30, 42, 78, literally stated on 173, sensory processing issues- page 4, 86, 191-192, etc), which made me hate the way her parents, as well as the author, were treating her. I'm not sure if the author intentionally wrote an autistic-coded character, but the plot was about fixing what are seen as autistic traits. As someone who is on the spectrum, I did not feel comfortable with how this was written.

To a neurotypical, this book would read as a young, introverted girl getting help to become extroverted. To a neurodivergent person like me, this reads as a girl being belittled by her parents and peers for not being “normal,” then trying to force her to assimilate into a neurotypical world all so that she can go to a school.

It would be different if Beatrice was stated to be a neurotypical introvert, who didn't show signs of neurodivergence that seems to be “unacceptable” in society's- and in her parents and new ‘friends' eyes. Seeing as they constantly treat her like a child, try to change everything about her, and belittle her, saying that she wouldn't be able to feed herself if she lived on her own. It's demeaning to people who can relate to her, and people who have the same traits as her. Also, having a neurotypical girl guide her around the camp to tell her how to act “normal” instead of allowing Beatrice to be true to herself was, quite frankly, offensive. (Also, every time they ridiculed her about her eating/sensory issues made me want to set this garbage book on fire.)

This book tried to be a story about an introverted girl going to summer camp and having a physical and mental changing montage à la Princess Diaries (as Nolan literally states on page 111), while to me this read like an autistic-coded character being bullied and discriminated against by her own family, peers and society.

Rant over.

Outside of what I mentioned in my rant, where were a few other things that I had issues within this book. First, the pacing. I know that I was reading from an ARC, but there were just random scenes missing. Not just from chapter to chapter, sometimes entire paragraphs would feel like there are scenes missing. Like one second Nik is standing in front of Bea and the next paragraph he's talking to Shelby and Nolan is siting with Bea? Like the entire scene of Nik and Bea finishing their conversation and Nik leaving to sit with Shelby is missing (page 126-128). It was very strange.

This book had some of the most bland characters ever. Other than token-straight white girl (and possibly autistic) Bea, we also have token rich mean boy Nik, token queer(?) woman of color best friend Mia, token gay male best friend Nolan, and Walmart-Regina-George Shelby. These characters were all very one dimensional, and even at 75% of the book, I still didn't know anything about them.

I was hopeful that there would be a brilliant enemies to lovers story, which is advertised on the back cover. Unfortunately, I only started liking the relationship between Nik and Bea once he started treating her like a normal fucking human being, and that was way past the book being halfway over. And don't get me started on the falsely-advertised found family trope.

Other than grammatical errors, poor writing, and being an absolute snoozefest, I have no further complaints about this book. And you know what? It's funny, I honestly don't have anything good to say about this book. I think this is the first time this has happened to me with any book ever lol. I'm done.

Note: The pages referenced may be incorrect in finalized copies.