Don’t Let It Break Your Heart

A newly out lesbian navigates her blossoming queer relationship as well as a complicated dynamic with her ex-boyfriend in Horne’s engaging debut. Even though 17-year-old Alana Lucas came out, very little has changed between her and her former boyfriend, and now just best friend, Gray, though their friend circle has begun excluding her in subtle ways. When Tal transfers from Portland, Maine, to their Bangor high school for senior year, Alana half-heartedly agrees to go along with Gray’s glacially slow plan to ask her out, despite her immediate attraction to the newcomer. After struggling to understand Tal’s signals, it finally clicks for Alana when Tal kisses her at a party. Keeping the budding relationship secret from Gray torments Alana and strains their relationship, even as it helps her rethink her friends’ tepid acceptance of her sexuality and allows her to tentatively explore queer community-building. But when a crisis calls Tal back to Portland, Alana’s choice to not immediately join her cascades into a messy fallout. Snarky humor buoys depictions of fraught, realistic relationships in this winning story of believably flawed teenagers contending with issues of first love and first heartbreak. Characters read as white. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)