When Nala Robertson reluctantly agrees to attend an open mic night for her cousin-sister-friend Imani's birthday, she finds herself falling in instant love with Tye Brown, the MC. He's perfect, except . . . Tye is an activist and is spending the summer putting on events for the community when Nala would rather watch movies and try out the new seasonal flavors at the local creamery. In order to impress Tye, Nala tells a few tiny lies to have enough in common with him. As they spend more time together, sharing more of themselves, some of those lies get harder to keep up. As Nala falls deeper into keeping up her lies and into love, she'll learn all the ways love is hard, and how self-love is revolutionary.
In Love Is a Revolution, plus size girls are beautiful and get the attention of the hot guys, the popular girl clique is not shallow but has strong convictions and substance, and the ultimate love story is not only about romance but about how to show radical love to the people in your life, including to yourself.
MY REVIEW
Let me just start off by saying if my seventeen-year-old self ever needed a book to relate to, this is definitely it! I fell in love with Love Is A Revolution by Renee Watson. Not only is there a girl on the cover of the book that looks like me, but she is also a plus-size teen because those do exist and deserve to have their stories told too.
We're introduced to our main character, Nala Robertson, who is excited to spend her last summer before senior year hanging out with her cousin-sister-friend, Imani, with whom she lives with and her other best friend, Sadie. Her plans are to sleep in, binge movies, listen to music, and have fun, but Imani has plans of her own. She started attending Inspire Harlem, which is an organization for teens that help in community service projects and host awareness events about different social issues. Nala is not a fan, but since the story starts out on Imani's birthday, Nala has no choice, but to attend a talent show hosted by Inspire Harlem because that's what Imani wants to do.
While attending the talent show Nala is introduced to Tye, who is new to Inspire Harlem. Nala is instantly attracted to Tye and by trying to form a connection with him, she lies about who she really is. Tye is a pescatarian and a young passionate activist, Nala is not, she loves meat and she's not an activist. She does however like spending time with her grandmother and her grandmother's friends who live at Sugar Hill Senior Living. So she tells another small lie about volunteering there because who hasn't changed or tweaked themselves a little for a crush? I remember doing somewhat of the same thing when I was a teen, but the truth always comes out and it did.
Nala and Tye begin dating and Imani starts to notice how Nala is changing and wanting to be around her friends from Inspire Harlems, which Nala didn't like to do before Tye. This causes a bit of separation between Nala and Imani.
As we read how Nala and Tye's relationship gets deeper, we get more information on Nala's living arrangements. She's living with Imani and her Aunt Ebony and Uncle Randy. We learn that Aunt Ebony is Nala's mom's sister. We get a clearer picture of Nala and her mom's relationship and understand why Imani is distancing herself from her cousin-sister-friend.
When the lies start to catch up with Nala, she starts doing a bit of soul searching to find out who she really is. This for me was one of my favourite parts of the story. I loved that throughout the story we got a glimpse into Nala's mind by reading the many lists/goals she would write out to herself. I loved that this story started because of a crush on a boy, but ended with a young woman discovering who she is and being comfortable in her skin/body.
A story I've been raving about the last couple of months to friends and family, Love Is A Revolution is a story that should be read by all, especially teens. I give this story 5 stars. It had me from the first chapter, which is hard to do. I usually can't get into a story until after the first couple of chapters, I was hooked from the beginning.
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