Dahlia Adler on Friendship and Representation in Just Visiting, and Where Else to Find It

Less than a year and a half ago, my first book released, and I got to write a post for B&N Reads about the experience of debuting and of seeing my first book in a store (Barnes & Noble, naturally) for the first time.
Today, my third YA releases. Just Visiting is so incredibly close to my heart, and it’s a book I’ve worked on over the past three years, while watching the landscape of YA change immensely. And while it still has aspects I haven’t seen in any other books, it’s also been really heartening to see that some of the things I wrote as a result of feeling like YA was really lacking them have since emerged in some really wonderful books. So, instead of a post all about me, this time, I’m gonna talk about them. Because occasionally, I like to recommend books.

Open Road Summer, by Emery Lord
Just Visiting was born out of my extreme frustration that every YA I was reading seemed to have frenemy and/or token best friends, rather than showing the powerful relationships teen girls can have. Not only do I think that’s pretty damaging, but it’s just so untrue to my personal experience. Lord’s debut was the first YA I ever read that made me think “I want my theoretical daughter to have this friendship,” and that is a pretty huge thing.

Just Like the Movies, by Kelly Fiore
While Just Visiting is about a friendship already a couple years in the making, Just Like the Movies is a friendship novel I loved for how real it felt with regard to brand-new ones. And what the two books do have in common is a need for the main characters to accept and love themselves in order to have real relationships with other people. I particularly loved how Fiore handled this with Marijke’s learning to embrace herself as an independent, growing person.

I’ll Meet You There, by Heather Demetrios
I hadn’t read much (any?) contemporary YA at all about girls living in poverty when I wrote Just Visiting, but when I read Demetrios’s phenomenal I’ll Meet You There, I saw so much in common between Reagan and Skylar, the challenges they face and their fears and desires, their drive and desperation, and their romantic experiences with soldier boys. This is one of my favorite books of the year, and I love the way Demetrios handled everything in it.

Song of Summer, by Laura Lee Anderson
I’m an avid fan of Switched at Birth, so it’s not all that surprising I envisioned one of the characters (Victoria’s mother) as deaf. The only children’s book I’d read with a major deaf character was Marlee Matlin’s Leading Ladies. Until this year. Song of Summer is about a super enchanting, compelling, and adorable romance between a hearing, music-loving girl named Robin and Carter, a hot deaf guy who rides a motorcycle and challenges Robin’s ideas of what she thought she needed in a guy.

How to Save a Life, by Sara Zarr
You know what’s really hard? Writing a book in alternating perspectives, when both perspectives are of the same gender. When I was struggling through writing and distinguishing Reagan and Victoria’s voices, I remembered Zarr’s book being the only one in which I’d seen it done before, and I picked it up for an inspirational reread. I was floored by how skillfully she differentiated between tough, closed-off, grieving Jill and questionably honest, desperate, open-hearted Mandy.

Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier
This is a book I actually haven’t read yet, but one of the best (and also most frustrating, as anyone who advocates for diverse kid lit knows) comments I’ve heard so far was from a girl thrilled to finally see Gujarati representation in a YA, in the form of the main love interest. I couldn’t think of others off the top of my head, but the wonderful short story author Shveta Thakrar (who is herself Gujju) recommended this one, about a traditionally raised girl falling for a guy who straddles the line of suitability.

The Weight of Feathers, by Anna-Marie McLemore
There are, of course, a plethora of great YA novels with Latina main characters (see: Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, by Meg Medina; Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, by Isabel Quintero; When Reason Breaks, by Cindy Rodriguez), but if I had to pick one favorite here, I’d go with McLemore’s beautiful lyrical ode to performance and forbidden romance, wrapped up in a tale infused with magical realism. One of my favorite debuts (and books) of the year, by an author who definitely does representation right.
Just Visiting is on sale today.