The Flipside of Perfect

by Liz Reinhardt

Overview

A heartfelt, fun, and romantic novel about balancing who we are with who we’re expected to be, perfect for fans of Jenna Evans Welch, Morgan Matson and Jenn Bennett!

What happens when her two worlds collide?

AJ is a buttoned-up, responsible student attending a high-achieving high school in Michigan. She lives with her mother, stepfather, and two younger half sisters.

Della spends every summer with her father in Florida. A free-spirited wild child, she spends as much time as possible on the beach with her friends and older siblings.

But there’s a catch: AJ and Della are the same person. Adelaide Beloise Jepsen to be exact, and she does everything she can to keep her school and summer lives separate.

When her middle sister crashes her carefree summer getaway, Adelaide’s plans fall apart. In order to help her sister, save her unexpected friendship with a guy who might just be perfect for her, and discover the truth about her own past, Adelaide will have to reconcile the two sides of herself…and face the fact that it’s perfectly okay not to be perfect all the time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335470447
Publisher:	Inkyard Press
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.50(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Liz Reinhardt was born and raised in the idyllic beauty of northwest NJ. A move to the subtropics of coastal Georgia with her daughter and husband left her with a newly realized taste for the beach and a bloated sunscreen budget. Right alongside these new loves is her old, steadfast affection and longing for bagels and the fast-talking foul mouths of her youth.
She loves Raisinettes, even if they aren't really candy, the Oxford comma, movies that are hilarious or feature zombies, any and all books, but especially romance (the smarter and hotter, the better), the sound of her daughter's incessantly wise and entertaining chatter, and watching her husband work on cars in the driveway.
You can read her blog at www.elizabethreinhardt.blogspot.com, like her on Facebook, or email her at [e-mail].
She is represented by Kevan Lyon of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.

Editorial Reviews

03/15/2021

Adelaide Josephine Jepsen Beloise, 17, who is white, spends each school year with her mother, stepfather, and two younger sisters in Michigan, and every summer with her father and older twin siblings in Florida. The summer after her senior year, she’s overdue for a break from life as AJ, “all-around overachiever” and eldest sister to mercurial, athletically gifted Marnie as well as rising country music star Lilli. In Florida, she can be carefree, youngest sister Della, but when she arrives to find her father’s fishing store in dire financial straits, she begins to question whether her bifurcated life is sustainable, and if it’s what she truly wants. Della’s growing interest in Jude Zeigler, her white summer coworker and longtime nemesis, provides flirtatious levity while serving as foil to AJ’s on-again, off-again Michigan relationship. Certain plot points, including familial secrets and her mother’s lack of boundaries, feel unresolved in Reinhardt’s snapshot of a single summer, but the nuanced family dynamics, gratifying enemies-to-lovers romance, and well-rendered depictions of her stressors—her sense of responsibility toward her siblings, the weight of her mother’s expectations, and anxiety surrounding inevitable changes—are richly drawn. Ages 13–up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

11/01/2020

Gr 10 Up—Seventeen-year-old Adelaide Josephine Jepsen Beloise is better known as AJ or Della, depending on where she is and who she's with. In Michigan with her mom, she's AJ, the privileged, overachieving oldest of the Jepsen Triple Threat sisters. In Florida with her dad, she's Della, the spoiled, laid-back baby of the Beloise family. When AJ's little sister, Marnie, has nowhere else to turn, she crash-lands into Della's summer family, and Della's perfectly divided life becomes irrevocably tangled. But in the disorder, Della finds love, happiness, and the strength to be herself. Can this new Della go back to AJ's old life? Though AJ/Della's split life is initially confusing, Reinhardt creates an engaging picture of both selves, and readers will will sympathize with AJ and Della alike. AJ and Della's families love her and one another other very much, and the slow burn enemies-to-lovers romance is filled with heart. Tough issues, such as teen pregnancy, cyberbulling, class differences, and alcoholism, are all addressed without being didactic. The white cast of characters are real, full of life, and flawed, which is why it's disappointing that the only LGBTQ character in the story, Marnie, is characterized frequently as a hot mess (unrelated to her sexuality) and whose only romantic relationship in the story ends in betrayal. Readers looking for similar coming-of-age stories would be better served by Jandy Nelson's I'll Give You the Sun or Rebecca Barrow's This Is What It Feels Like. Those seeking more diverse and nuanced romance should seek out Reinhardt's Rebels Like Us. VERDICT A sweet coming-of-age story and a tender romance marred by problematic representation.—Mimi Powell, Lib. Systs. and Svcs., Kissimmee, FL

School Library Journal

2021-01-26
During the school year in Michigan, she’s “prim and proper AJ”; during summers in Florida, she’s “free and wild Della.” Nowhere does she feel completely herself.

In chapters alternating between her disparate lives, the protagonist, a rising high school senior, describes one of her selves as hyperorganized, driven, and perfectionist. Living with her lifestyle-blogger mother, she attends a prestigious private school and has irksome responsibility for her younger half sisters. Time spent at her father’s bait shop, in contrast, is laid-back, involving relaxation at the beach and babying by her adoring older stepsiblings. But when her rebellious half sister precipitates a crisis, her two identities collide. Both worlds are limned in leisurely detail: the stifling pressure of expectations, the shallow cruelties of her school friends, and the cheerful tackiness of the rural ocean town. Yet the narrator never quite clarifies why she feels she needs to keep everything so cartoonishly separated. Continually bemoaning her self-imposed dilemma while remaining oblivious to the struggles of those she claims to love, she’s realistically imperfect but may be a difficult character to root for. Ultimately, she has many dramatic experiences, but actual character growth feels lacking. Refreshingly, characters display a wide variety of spiritual beliefs, from atheist to devout, presented as a normal part of their lives. Main characters are cued as White; one of AJ/Della’s sisters is queer.

Fairy-tale solutions make readers less invested in the narrator’s newfound balance and maturity. (Fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Reviews