Seventeen-year-old Coley, who is White and Japanese, braces for impact as a minivan hurtles toward her in a parking lot. Two girls wounded by their past relationships grapple with the undeniable intensity of their feelings for one another in this novel based on the pop-star author’s popular song and music video. There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character.
But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.Īutumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart their mothers are still best friends.
While Bailey’s character is in a state of realistic development and flux, her three friends are tightly typecast as the brain, the flirt and the tomboy, which makes for predictable actions and dialogue.
The girls slowly uncover the well-developed fairy world, which closely mirrors the myth of the Three Fates, through the Internet and the help of a linguist, adding a realistic dimension to the plot. Although initially psyched with their powers, which they humorously put to use, the girls quickly realize, by way of Bailey’s ability to channel mysterious voices and visions, that they have become entangled in a dangerous struggle between three ancient fairies who threaten civilization. The tattoos give each teen a supernatural power, ranging from transmogrification to pyrokinesis. Just like any other Friday night, close friends Bailey, Delia, Zo and Annabelle are hanging out at the mall, but when the girls apply temporary tattoos of strange symbols, the evening quickly becomes anything but ordinary.
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