It’s Our Prom (So Deal with It)

When Azure’s principal asks her to join the senior prom planning committee to increase its inclusivity, the gay student recruits her bisexual friend Luke and her crush Radhika for help. But their plans for a drag show and a tattoo and piercing artist spell trouble. There are other logistical problems as well, and both Azure and Luke want to ask Radhika to the dance. Peters (She Loves You, She Loves You Not...) offers a thoughtful premise, but readers may initially be turned off by the slow pacing of this book, told from Azure’s and Luke’s alternating perspectives; there are lots of meetings at which little is decided. Additionally, the subplots—the production of Luke’s school musical (he’s the “writer, producer, choreographer, director and star” of his coming-out story), Radhika’s ambivalence about going to Yale—are not all well developed, and the characters’ happy endings are perhaps overly neat. By the time the protagonists show up at the prom they have fought for, though, readers will be onboard with the resulting over-the-top fun. Ages 12–up. Agent: Wendy Schmalz, Wendy Schmalz Agency. (Apr.)