Summer is right around the corner, and you know what that means: summer reading! Books by the pool, books to take on vacation and relax with on the airplane or bus. Summer is a time for lighthearted, brain-candy stories like action flicks, superhero movies, and rom-coms. Other than Valentine’s Day and Christmas, summer is basically prime rom-com season. And for women loving women (wlw), that means…we got nothing. Rom-coms and stories of young summer love are by and large straight and heteronormative, unfortunately. But there’s hope! Because I just finished The Summer of Jordi Perez and I can say definitively that if you’re looking for a queer story of summer love, plus sized fashion, friendship, and a fat, queer girl falling in love with a cool, artsy girl, this is it.
A Brief (Spoiler-Free) Run-Down
Seventeen, fashion-obsessed, and gay, Ibby Ives has always been content playing the sidekick to other people’s lives. While her friends and sister have plunged headfirst into the world of dating and romances, Abby’s been happy to focus on her plus-size style blog and her dreams of taking the fashion industry by storm. When she lands a great internship at her favorite boutique, she’s thrilled to take the first step toward her dream career. Then she falls for her fellow intern, Jordi Perez. Hard. And now she’s competing against the girl she’s kissing to win the coveted paid job at the end of the internship.
But really, nothing this summer is going as planned. She also unwittingly becomes friends with Jax, a lacrosse-playing bro-type who wants her help finding the best burger in Los Angeles, and she’s struggling to prove to her mother—the city’s celebrity health nut—that she’s perfectly content with who she is.
Just as Abby starts to feel like she’s no longer the sidekick in her own life, Jordi’s photography surprisingly puts her in the spotlight. Instead of feeling like she’s landed a starring role, Abby feels betrayed. Can Abby find a way to reconcile her positive yet private sense of self with the image others have of her?
The Good Stuff
The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding has everything a good summer rom-com needs: a compelling female protagonist who wants love but isn’t sure she believes it will come true for herself, a cool, seemingly out-of-reach love interest, a best friend with a new boyfriend who is kind of unsure of this new cool girl, a new friend looking for relationship advice from the girl who can’t seem to find love. And burgers. (The best rom-coms have food be a major theme, in my opinion.)
Plus, readers of fanfic and lesbian fiction will welcome the subtle use of tropes we’re familiar with from those genres: tol/smol, blonde (well, pink-haired, but Abby’s a natural blonde)/brunette, opposite styles, one bed job they’re trying to share. In many ways, it feels like the perfect hybrid of romantic comedy and fanfic—and I mean that as a compliment.
When I started reading, I could immediately think of friends I would recommend this book to. It’s very much within the aesthetic of so much of the fiction my friends read, but it’s mainstream and it’s a summer rom-com—just the kind of story that we wlw rarely get to see. One of the best parts of the book is how cinematic it felt. Maybe it’s just because I’m so visual and tend to ‘watch’ books while I read them, but I could picture this book playing out on screen as a summer teen blockbuster rom-com no problem. It has all the right beats and pacing for a film but works super well as a book, too.
Spalding does an excellent job capturing the tone and voice of teen romance. Yet, even as an adult I found Abby relatable. Partly because I felt like the sidekick who’d never get my own romance growing up. Partly because Abby is so open about how she feels and thinks. She’s honest about her feelings. She’s at once confident in her sense of self and style but with that niggling insecurity that so perfectly captures teenage self-ambivalence (or at least did for me).
I especially love how well Spalding did showing us how important fashion is to Abby. And not just in her internship and blog. Every time Abby changes into a new outfit, we get a rundown of what it is in detail, plus we see her minute observations of other people’s fashion choices. That’s the kind of writing that characterizes a protagonist well. We know how much fashion means to Abby because we see it impact her thought processes.
“No, I wasn’t in love with clothes, but maybe I was in love with how clothes made me feel. I was designing how other people saw me.”
I also appreciated Abby’s interiority. There were moments where her day-dreaminess and tendency to lose track of conversations felt very familiar to me. As someone with ADHD, these kinds of things happen all the time, yet I rarely get to read that process in print. Now, Abby isn’t diagnosed or anything, but this is one of those moments were, whether Spalding meant it or not, Abby reads as ADHD and I found it charming. I so rarely get to see that representation of my neurodiversity in general, much less with a fat, queer girl in a romance.
Abby’s internal monologue about her feelings for girls is also one of the most #relatable things ever. Seriously. Spalding has that dry, self-aware gay panic voice down, and it’s utterly delightful to read. In response to realizing she thinks fellow intern Jordi is hot, Abby responds with:
“The human condition is bullshit.”
Later on, she says,
“I’ve never seen her bare legs before, and it’s honestly a lot to process.”
I couldn’t stop laughing because of how called out I felt by it.
The other characters have a lot of heart, too. Jax is surprisingly decent, and his dynamic with Abby reminds me of one of my good friends, a lesbian, describing her relationship with her best male friend. I also liked how Spalding wrote the dynamic between Malia and Abby, especially how it grew and changed over the course of the book.
Abby’s relationship with her mom hit home to me. My mom isn’t a health nut, but the same unhealthy dynamic exists between us as it does between Abby and Norah. The fundamental belief that you parents don’t support you and want to change you is one that a lot of queer teens have to deal with. Spalding found a way to talk about that without making it entirely about homophobia, which I think worked really well in telling this story. Abby’s relationship with Jordi and her relationship with her mom got to be two different things that affected each other, but never did homophobia become the looming shadow that overtook the joy of Abby’s first love.
More than anything, Abby’s relationship to herself, Jordi, her friends, and her mom felt very true-to-life. This seems to come from a place of intimate experience. Whether Spalding herself went through these struggles or not, that it can seem so intimate and real speaks highly of her as an author. It never veers into uncomfortably voyeuristic, but it never loses that sense of being honest. The formulaic nature of romantic comedy can at times undercut the heart that should be the driving force of the story. Spalding never lets that happen, and I’m impressed.
Like most teen rom-coms, The Summer of Jordi Perez is about romance, but it’s also about change. About what happens when the people closest to go to college or start dating. About the perception of loss and loneliness that comes when your best friend has more time for their boyfriend than you and your older sister, who was once your main confidante and balance in a chaotic family, moves away. It’s about family dynamics and friendships changing and how to work through that while you’re seeing your life change in other ways. There’s a lot going on, and Spalding balances out all of the threads of change in Abby’s life quite well considering how much there is.
Potential Drawbacks
The fact that Abby Ives doesn’t have any other queer friends, and in LA of all places, seems strange. When I was in high school and still under the impression that I was straight (HA!), even I knew that the queer kids all hung out together because I hung out with them (Yeah, yeah, it makes sense now, but then? I had no idea that meant anything.) There were the theater gays and then there was the group of mostly lesbians and a couple bi girls and guys who hung out separately. I guess with my other friend groups I was the token gay, even if unaware, but still. I knew where the queer kids hung out and that they came in packs.
That Abby knows absolutely zero other queer people at her school and has to wonder if both Jordi and her former crush are gay and try to figure it out by trolling their social media didn’t quite fit with what high school had been like for me. Maybe things are different now? Either way, it would have been nice to have Abby have one queer friend she could relate to.
I also wish we could have gotten more interactions between Abby and her boss/mentor Maggie. I really liked that dynamic and think there’s a missed opportunity there. It would have made the book longer, for sure, but I wouldn’t have minded. The payoff in giving Abby an older female figure, and one that she perceives as a mentor in her field, while she’s struggling with the internal conflict over who is going to get the job could have been amped up, especially if Jordi likewise got off-screen mentoring sessions with Maggie. Plus, I like the idea of Abby getting to have more of a mother figure given how toxic her relationship with her own mother is. However, your mileage may vary on this point. It’s more a personal desire than an objection to the book itself.
I also would have liked a bit more time with the conclusion. But that’s kind of how rom-coms go right? Everything leads up to the big crisis, then it dwells there for a while, then it’s all neatly wrapped up in a couple pages/minutes. The ending is happy, you feel good about where the story is headed, and can imagine the happiest of endings further down the line. And even with how brief it is, Spalding managed to bring in a healthy discussion of consent, forgiveness, and moving forward after feeling betrayed, so I can’t complain too much. Maybe I just like my afterglows a bit longer 😉
Final Score: 8/10
There’s a lot to love about The Summer of Jordi Perez. The unabashed centering of a queer, pink-haired, fat girl in a rom-com brings me a lot of joy. Wlw are under-represented in this genre as it is, much less wlw who aren’t immediately ‘marketable’ to a straight audience (read: conventionally attractive). This is a book for queer girls, make no mistake. And I love that about it. Overall, it’s a light, enjoyable read. Perfect for summer time! So grab a burger—preferably In-N-Out animal style, the objectively best burger (the book agrees with me!)—your shades, and a cute, fruit-print skirt or shirt, and get ready to fall in love.
About the Author
Amy Spalding has a BA in advertising and marketing communications from Webster University and an MA in media studies from The New School. Amy studied long-form improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. By day, she manages the digital media team for an indie film advertising agency. By later day and night, Amy writes, performs, and pets as many cats as she can. She is the author of several other young adult novels including Kissing Ted Callahan (And Other Guys, Love and Music (and Missing Ted Callahan), Ink is Thicker than Water, The New Guy (And Other Senior Year Distractions), and The Reece Malcolm List. She grew up in St. Louis, but now lives in the Better weather of Los Angeles.
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Summer of Jordi Perez is available for purchase in hardcover or as an eBook on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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Note: The author of this review received a copy of the book in exchange for a free and honest review.
