Title: Love is a Revolution
Author: Renée Watson
Type: Fiction
Genre: YA, Contemporary
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Date published: February 2, 2021

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Raincoast Books in exchange for an honest review.

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 ⬻

First and foremost, can I just say how much I love the cover for Love is a Revolution? The style, the colours, just everything. I also loved the diverse body representation in this book. We need more books featuring characters with varying body types–fictional characters should be just as diverse as the people of the world.

I also want to point out that Nala’s family situation really stood out to me. I can’t say too much else…but I will say that it added novelty while also bringing awareness to the living situations of some young adults. I also found that Nala’s interactions with her family were different from anything I’d encountered before due to the family’s structure.

I appreciated the complexity of the characters in Love is a Revolution–especially Nala, Tye, and Nala’s cousin, Imani. That being said, I often had to remind myself that these were teenagers who would make poor life choices and that I should read this book with a mindset looking for character growth…because I could not get behind a lot of the decisions that these three characters made.

This actually pulled me out of the story at times because I had to lower the book and look at the ceiling, muttering “Noooo why did you do that/say that?” I was frustrated like this for a good part of the book. But, as I mentioned, I did really try to keep an eye out for character development and remember that these characters are teenagers. All that aside, this book was educational for me, and I do plan on reading Renée Watson’s other books!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Renée Watson is the author of the children’s picture book, A Place Where Hurricanes Happen (Random House, June 2010), which was featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Her middle grade novel, What Momma Left Me debuted as the New Voice for 2010 in middle grade fiction by The Independent Children’s Booksellers Association. Renée’s one woman show, Roses are Red, Women are Blue, debuted at New York City’s Lincoln Center at a showcase for emerging artists. Her poetry and articles have been published in Rethinking Schools, Theatre of the Mind and With Hearts Ablaze. Read more on Renée’s Goodreads page.

⤖ Places to Purchase the Book ⬻

⤖ Let’s Chat ⬻

THANK YOU FOR READING MY REVIEW! HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? AND IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET, DO YOU WANT TO, OR NOT? HOW COME? LET ME KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS!