He Must Like You

Written by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Viking (Penguin Random House)

978-1-9848-3571-0

336 pp.

Ages 14+

July 2020
Reviewed from advance readers copy

Young girls are often told, or at least they once were, that if a boy teased you or went out of his way to annoy you or get your attention that “he must like you.” And even though  they may feel unsafe or targeted, they were instructed to just bear it and were essentially chastized for making a big deal of it. Everyone should know better today. But do we?

Libby lives with her parents in the small community of Pine Ridge and in January of her senior year, her parents inform her of her new reality. Seems that because her older brother Jack dropped out of pre-med and skipped off to Greece around the time her dad was fired from his real estate brokerage firm, her parents have decided that they’ve spoiled their kids and it’s time for Libby to become independent. Not only do they want her to get a job and look for an apartment–they have plans to redo her and Jack’s rooms for Airbnb rental–but her education fund is gone. Libby is flabbergasted but she has no choice but to find a way to make some money.

She is determined to get a job as a server so she can boost her savings with tips. Because of her dad’s reputation as a jerk who provokes local businesses–they later learn he’s moved on to trolling on social media–she gets a wait job at the Goat, a restaurant just out of town. The staff is friendly and she likes the work, and Kyle, the host, helps her out by sending the big spenders her way to increase her tips.

Though Libby is not currently seeing anyone, she’s struggling with feelings about relationships and interactions she’s had and is having with certain guys in her life. She had a weird relationship with her ex-boyfriend Boris that was based more on relenting to sex than consenting to it. Then there’s Kyle who flirts like crazy with her and with whom she has sex though doesn’t feel good about doing it. There’s also her good friend Noah who is in a long-distance relationship but to whom Libby is drawn romantically.  And then there’s Perry Ackerman, the town’s saviour and big-tipping Goat customer, who regularly harasses her with sexually explicit banter and handsiness.

The turning point for Libby is a school assembly about consent given by a public health nurse.

…Dahlia Brennan basically just reached into my brain, grabbed a bunch of my memories from where they were filed (mostly under “crappy sex” or “boy acts like jerk” or “Libby is an idiot”), threw them on the floor, and told me I have to refile them under “coercion,” “sexual assault,’ and “rape.” (pg. 66)

So not only is she dealing with a lousy family situation, Libby is recognizing that, beyond the overtly offensive Perry whose behaviour should never have been tolerated by so many,  her crappy feelings related to Boris and Kyle need to be resolved if she is to have a positive relationship with Noah (fingers crossed) and keep a job she needs.

He Must Like You is a big story. (Danielle Younge-Ullman knows how to do important stories for young adults. If you haven't read her Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined, which won the Forest of Reading's White Pine Award and was nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award, put it on your to-be-read list.) He Must Like You is a story about sexual harassment, assault, consent, relationships and family. And Danielle Younge-Ullman ensures that it is all about Libby and what she is experiencing and what she needs. She gets to choose how she feels. She gets to decide what is acceptable for her in approaching the guys who have compromised her will and safety.  She gets to decide what she will and will not accept. In a time of #MeToo, Danielle Younge-Ullman educates young teens of all genders that consent is not just a yes or a no. It’s so much more. And Danielle Younge-Ullman does this with subtlety and sensitivity, common sense and even humour.

He might like her–and Noah does–but no person should feel unsafe or compromised or guilted by the another's interest or actions and He Must Like You and Danielle Younge-Ullman leave no room for misinterpretation or ambiguity about this while telling a great YA story that inspires hope for love and empowerment.

He Must Like You: Upcoming release

We all 💕 Danielle Younge-Ullman's 

Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined

Written by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Razorbill

978-0-425-28759-0

368 pp.

Ages 13-17

2017

Reviewed here

(It did win the White Pine Award and
was nominated for
a Governor General's Literature Award and
 the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award.) 

Now we can look forward to her newest YA novel,

one that blends that same depth of issue with the humour that made Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined such a hit.

He Must Like You

Written by Danielle Younge-Ullman

Penguin Teen

July 14 2020

Read this excerpt to get a sense for why you're going to want to read this one!

“I have the item” is the first thing I hear when I walk into work on Sunday night.

The item in question is my duvet, and the person winking at me about it is Kyle.

Kyle, who is standing behind the host stand in the cheery foyer of the Goat wearing a mini cowboy hat with plush horns curling out of it—the latest in his growing collection of goat-themed apparel. He looks hilarious, cute, and deceptively harmless.

“It’s in my truck. I’ll give it to you after?”

“Sure. Thanks,” I say, with what I hope is a neutral-seeming nod.

I’ll have to wash it in hot water. Twice.

“Or we could go for a drive, climb into the back, get cozy,” Kyle suggests, with a waggle of his white-blond eyebrows.

My insides take flight like a flock of startled birds, and then I’m doing this awkward thing where I’m cringing and trying to smile at the same time. But smiling might be too encouraging and so I stop, because even after three weeks of my ignoring his texts and generally avoiding him as much as possible, Kyle continues to look at me with those stupidly hopeful, flirty eyes.

Still, I don’t want to be rude. We work together, and in that capacity Kyle has been fine. In fact, except for the one (admittedly problematic) incident, he’s been great. Not to mention, I’m the one who asked him to bring me the duvet when my mom finally noticed it was missing today. I’m also the one who let him wear it home from my house in the first place.

“I’ll just grab it from you after,” I say. “I have a lot of homework.”

“Your call,” he says with a shrug.

“Right.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say, with another too-bright smile. “Um, what’s my section?”

“The patio,” Kyle says, gesturing at the giant, erasable seating chart that sits on the host podium.

“Alone?”

“Yeah. That okay?”

It’s a big section to handle solo but more tables means more tips, so I say, “Totally.”

“By the way, Perry’s coming in, and he asked for you specifically,” Kyle says, looking at me like he expects this to make me ecstatic.

Perry Ackerman is a handful, and high on the list of people I’d rather not have to deal with right now. But he’s a great tipper, and a regular, so I give Kyle a thumbs-up and say, “Awesome.”

“I knew that’d make you happy.”

“So happy,” I say, and walk away taking deep breaths.

On my way through the restaurant I wave at my fellow servers Brianna and Kat, both of whom are working in the front tonight. Kat seems not to see me, but Brianna gives me a thumbs-up and pulls a comically panicked face that tells me she’s already in the weeds.

The patio is at the back of the restaurant, and is, in fact, not a patio at all, but a windowless, rectangular space tricked out with fake plants, paper lanterns, an anemic fountain, and painted “windows” on every wall that do not fool anyone.

I have just enough time to tidy the section, tally my float, and gulp down a half cup of hideously bitter coffee behind the wall of the service station before I hear, “Libbyyyyyyyy!”

“You got the ol’ perv?” Brianna gives me a wry, dimpled grin as she comes through with a stack of dirty plates. Her amazing crown of black braids adds at least three inches to her diminutive stature.

“Yep.”

“All right, tits up,” she says, which I’ve come to understand means some combination of “chin up” and “good luck.”

I snort and square my shoulders.

(Retrieved from

 http://www.penguinteen.com/penguin-teen-cover-reveal-bonanza-2/

on October 16, 2019.)

Gypsy's Fortune

by Caroline Stellings

Peanut Butter Press

978-1-927735-07-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

November, 2014

On February 19, 2015, millions around the world will be celebrating Chinese New Year and I can't think of a sweeter new book to herald it in than Caroline Stellings' first picture book, Gypsy's Fortune.  As unimposing as the author-artist herself–her previous books include The Contest (Second Story Press,  2009) and The Manager (Cape Breton University Press, 2013)–Gypsy's Fortune shares clever messages about resilience and friendship, while offering a creative history regarding the origins of the fortune cookie.

Though she lives as a vagabond and sleeps beneath the stars, the ever-cheerful Gypsy, a "palm-reading, crystal-gazing, fortune-telling cat" (pg. 6), has managed to eke out a living in 1920s San Francisco. But the election of a new mayor who denies Gypsy and other fortune-tellers the right to charge for their services has our feline scurrying for alternate employment, but unsuccessfully.  It is only when Gypsy offers to wash dishes at Wu's Restaurant and instead shares a meal with Mr. Wu that her luck changes.

Discreetly reading his tea-leaves, Gypsy realizes Mr. Wu should not be selling his restaurant as he intends and finds a way to share this "fortune" with him.  With a new marketing strategy, the two establish a friendly partnership to woo new customers and provide Gypsy with employment.

Caroline Stellings' watercolour illustrations lend an ethereal quality to Gypsy's Fortune, wholly appropriate for Gypsy's spiritual endeavours and light-heartedness.  Wide bands of subtle shading crisscross the illustrations and enhance the jaunty nature of the time and Gypsy herself.  Though the colour reproduction of the book cover does not do justice to the artwork within, Gypsy's Fortune is filled with paintings in colourful but pale hues depicting Gypsy's endeavours and fortune cookies with messages.

Just as one fortune cookie's message reads, "The long road is often the shortest path to the correct destination" (pg. 6), I believe Caroline Stellings is heading in the right direction and, with Gypsy's Fortune, I hope her destination is better secured.

Butterflies Don't Lie

Written by B. R. Myers

Nimbus Publishing

978-1-77108-162-7

288 pp.

Ages 12+

September 2014

A review of Butterflies Don't Lie may have been better posted in September when the book was first released and when summer was hardly the distant memory it is now in January. But perhaps this is a great time to think about summer jobs, sun and sand and summer-time romances, when we need to enjoy the lightness that comes with being sixteen and working at a restaurant on the water and crushing on a guy.  Think back, whether it's years or months, and enjoy the warmth, be it the sun on your skin or the butterflies in your belly, that comes with B. R. Myers' first novel, Butterflies Don't Lie.

Sixteen-year-old Kelsey has her whole summer at home in Mariner's Cove ahead of her, and she's got one goal:  to grab the attention and hopefully a kiss from Blaine Mulder, a gorgeous classmate on whom Kelsey has been crushing. Her best friend, Francine, who is going to be away all summer, has helped Kelsey devise a plan (spreadsheet and all) that includes bumping into Blaine as he teaches sailing at the yacht club near the restaurant, the Queen's Galley, where Kelsey will be bussing tables.  But the best laid plans...well, you know the way they can go awry.

First, she becomes more responsible for her little brother, Chet, whom she adores but requires special attention.  Mom and Dad are not acting like themselves, and Mom is decidedly cool towards Kelsey's need to be a regular teen.  And, most unexpected of all, one of the Stunders (summer residents at Mariner's Cove) is working at the Queen's Galley and always seems to catch Kelsey at her worst: almost getting Chet injured, ruining the flower beds, losing Chet, mixing up sugar and salt, and getting drunk.  And while she doesn't stray from her Blaine spreadsheet, Kelsey is certainly taken with Luke (sadly known as How-Hole through most of the book) and his beautiful blue eyes and the butterflies that swoop inside when he looks at her.

It's pretty obvious that Kelsey and Luke are somehow going to get together, but neither is working that angle.  In fact, the multitude of magazine quizzes that Kelsey does regularly hint at nothing more than the outcome she wants for herself i.e., Blaine is the boyfriend for her.  Luke may be fairly private, and rumours of his sanity questioned, but he can see through Kelsey and the quizzes she cheats at, more insightful into her personality than she herself is.  What the reader will be waiting to learn is how the two will ever get together when Kelsey continues to be smitten with Blaine and things at home are so messed up.

While Butterflies Don't Lie may not be an emotionally shattering love story, it's as a first love, a summer love should be: light-hearted, playful, absurd, tenuous, and promising.  And B. R. Myers gets it all right.  Teens will enjoy second-guessing Kelsey's motivations, cheering her on, shouting at her to "Forget Blaine!" and encouraging her to be nice to Luke, while still wondering whether things can work out.  Again, even though B. R. Myers dangles several secrets as potential obstacles to Kelsey and Luke's romance,  the greatest complications are the teens' inability to be honest with themselves and second guessing the other's intentions.  Luckily, their mistakes aren't life- or relationship-threatening, only fodder for more humour.

Based on Butterflies Don't Lie, I think we can look forward to another youngCanLit author to follow here on CanLit for LittleCanadians; fortunately, B. R. Myers is set to release another young adult novel in 2015.

***********************

After posting this review of Butterflies Don't Lie, B.R. Myers shared that a sequel to the book would be coming out in the fall of 2015.  Just Jesse will be published by Nimbus Publishing and will focus on the best friend of Chloe, the popular girl at the Queen's Galley who befriends Kelsey.  Chloe shares with Kelsey that her friend, Jesse, is also away and she misses her, just as Kelsey misses Francine.  There is a suggestion that Jesse has had a hard time dealing with the passing of her father, but we never meet Jesse, only her mom–the caterer hired after Kelsey drives away the cake decorator–and grandmother. Check out B. R. Myers' blog at http://bethanymyers.blogspot.ca/p/busgirl-blues.html to learn about Just Jesse and her other books, already published and forthcoming.