A very cute romance for middle-grade readers. I liked the topics of gender love and relationships in this novel. I see this as a good book to read in a book club as there are a lot of topics broached.

Pros of this book:
A nonbinary character with a plot beyond "coming out" with an authentic story, and feelings outside of their identity.
A storytelling format that's engaging and asks you to keep turning the page to find out what happens on the next day of the countdown

Cons of this book:
The dual POV made some of the story not make sense until 3/4 through the back when you got to the other side of the story - an interesting concept that didn't work in practice.
There were large sections of the book that dragged and needed revising for pacing

Such a sweet book!

I loved the way this book was set up--Essie's "butterfly" narrative counting down the days she has left in town, while Ollie's "hand" chapters count up the days since they met her--and that both voices sound unique and genuine. There is a bit of repetition, but considering we're seeing the same time period twice, the author does a nice job of keeping it fresh and showing us new angles. Ollie's texts with their older brother Max were some of my favorite bits; their relationship is just so adorable.

I loved that Ollie has so many people in their life that 100% support them, but also that they manage to get across to their mother that they don't really need *quite* as much help now as they did two years ago. Both Essie and Ollie had issues to resolve with their mothers here, and I think the author did a nice job of letting the teens show their mothers what they needed from them without being bratty and overly me-centric.

My one complaint is that some aspects of one character's story that end up being fairly important to them--the best example being Ollie's after school Stage Combat class--are barely or not at all mentioned in the other character's POV. Sure, Essie wasn't involved in the activity, but since Ollie ends up having to make a fairly major decision around it and Essie does help out, it's odd that it doesn't even get a mention on her side of the story.

(And can we just say? Stage Combat class? Where do I sign up? ;))

Altogether, this was a really fun read and I'll definitely keep an eye out for more from this author.

Rating: 4 stars / A-

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

This lovely book is about a young girl who befriends a boy. The boy is a non-binary; she was born a girl. This middle school story is quite a unique romance for young readers. It tackles labels and gender roles. I loved the overall story and the cute cover. I gave this 4 stars. It’s available now!

SPIN WITH ME is a heartfelt middle grade contemporary about labels and love. Essie has been moved across the country to do the first semester of seventh grade away from her friends. Her father has brought her to North Carolina for a visiting professorship, and her mother has stayed behind. Although Essie thought she couldn't like it there, she has started making friends and even has a crush on Ollie.

Ollie is non-binary, something Essie did not fully understand. In her search to understand and decide how she fits into this crush with this knowledge, Essie has much to learn. At the same time, she is dealing with her family and the situation that feels stranger as time goes on. The first half of the book is told by Essie and the second half is the same story told from Ollie's point-of-view, an intriguing and revealing addition to the story.

What I loved: The way that the book is told first from Essie's point-of-view and then from Ollie's gives it some unique flair. The reader is immersed in each perspective, making them each seem really heartfelt. There are some great themes about labels and finding your place in the world that will resonate with middle grade readers who are just beginning to find their footing. It's also really great to see a non-binary rep in the book along with a cute and sweet romance. There is also some added fun in the format that includes text conversations between friends and the two main characters, also making the book move really quickly.

Final verdict: Overall, SPIN WITH ME is a cute and sweet contemporary middle grade romance with just the right amount of zap. Important themes and non-binary rep really make this one shine.

Please note that I received an ARC through netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Rounding up from 2.5 stars. The basic idea of the book was strong and necessary - there are certainly not enough middle grade books with nonbinary characters, especially as love interests, nor are there many with cis characters trying to understand a crush on/romantic interest in a nonbinary character - but the execution was mediocre. There's a difference between a book being fast paced and one with scenes so short that it doesn't really feel that there's time for the emotions and ideas within to settle. I also found having the entire first half as Essie's perspective and the entire second half from Ollie's to be a bit of an odd choice: it ended up with some scenes essentially recreated in the second half without much being added by the perspective change alongside plotlines which are not even hinted at in the first part. Ollie's stage combat class, for example, is a pretty significant part of their section, despite not being mentioned even off-handedly in Essie's - it's an interesting writing challenge to have one perspective highlight or minimize certain things versus the other, but it felt a bit off balance to have certain aspects seemingly not exist at all.

Overall, I found Ollie much more strongly characterized than Essie, and their issues with parental involvement and trying to balance their advocacy with being a normal kid were laid out nicely. Essie on the other hand....there was a moment where she described something as being "classic Essie," and I found myself thinking that I had absolutely no idea if that was true or not. Rather than a full character, she seemed much more a vehicle for the Issues of the book. The older side characters like Annabella or Ollie's brother Max often came off as better developed than most of the young characters; none of the friends, for example, seemed to be particularly well-rounded or have all that much to differentiate them.

The concepts around gender and nonbinary identity were also much better described in Ollie's part of the book. During Essie's half, Ollie describes themselves as "a girl who's a boy" and Essie decides that makes sense based on her knowledge of Ollie - perhaps not the most helpful explanation for young readers encountering the idea of the gender spectrum for the first time.

I'm also not sure that the voices felt particularly authentic to the age group. Like many adult authors writing middle grade/YA there seemed to be an awkwardness to the text messages in particular, but there were also some strange turns of phrase overall, such as one of the characters referring to "the interweb," or Essie describing her mother as "aloof" - it's certainly not impossible for a seventh grader to know the word, but would they realistically use it instead of "distant"? I also found myself wondering whether seventh graders would really be using the language of love and attraction rather than more nebulous feelings and crushes.

I think this is a decent option to offer middle grade readers, perhaps those who have enjoyed Alex Gino's work in the past, but I hope that more books with nonbinary/genderqueer characters will eventually be offered which might be a bit stronger.

There's no shortage of cute moments in this MG novel about the crush between a cis girl and her non-binary classmate. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like there was much more to the characters besides this crush so the character development was off for me. I really liked the relationship between Ollie and Essie and their respective parents. I've had patron requests for books with non-binary rep before so I would add it to my collection -- and hopefully add some OwnVoices novels with non-binary characters alongside it.

Essie is dealing with the separation of her parents and accompanies her dad to his temporary teaching assignment in another state away from her mother. Essie is welcomed in by a group of students and quickly develops a crush on Ollie. She thinks Ollie is a boy but later realized they are non-binary. Ollie is an activist and Essie join their group GLOW. Essie struggles with many questions and understanding labels. I think this is a strong story representing a non-binary character and the legitimate struggles middle school aged students in figuring themselves out and navigating the labels and expectations placed on them. The formatting in the ebook was hard to follow. I was surprised when the story flipped from Essie telling the story to Ollie retelling the story from their perspective. I wish that their stories had been woven together throughout.

This is a dual perspective middle grade novel about Essie, who forms a crush on her classmate Ollie. Ollie is non-binary and Essie navigates a possible relationship with them and what that means for her identity. I think those are very natural thought processes to have. Ollie’s perspective focuses primarily on their life and identity and how they worry their identity might effect how Essie sees them. I’m really happy to see more non-binary rep in MG. However, this author is not an own voices author and I could tell. I think Ollie’s experience may fit more with other non-binary people, but it wasn’t necessarily everything I wanted this rep to be or exactly what I could relate to. I don’t think that should be considered a negative, since every non-binary experience is different—just something I wanted to note. The biggest thing that took me out of the sorry were the messaging sequences. I found them hard to follow and disjointed. This is my first book from this author, and while I liked the characters, I had trouble connecting with the writing style and found it a little flat. However, I think this is an important book and will recommend it to my patrons, despite not loving the writing style.

This was such a sweet story! The book touched on topics such as gender identity, pronouns, activism, friendship, first romantic feelings, family, moving, and separation of parents. I liked the main characters and how their crush/friendship/relationship developed. I think Essie's and Ollie's thoughts, feelings and questions would be very relatable for middle grade readers (trying to understand their feelings for each other, questions about labels, answering friends' questions, etc). I also appreciated the relationships Essie and Ollie had with their parents. Essie began questioning why she and her father moved for her dad's new job, but her mom stayed behind. Meanwhile, Ollie began feeling a bit weighed down by their parent's constant hovering. Once again, I think these concerns are very relatable. The book is told from both Essie's and Ollie's perspective, which I enjoyed. However, I would have preferred alternating chapters for each character's perspective. Instead, the first half of the book is from Essie's pov and then the second half of the book starts back over from the beginning, but from Ollie's pov. I think this format muddled the story a bit for me. Still, I enjoyed reading it and I think it would be a good recommendation as a light romance/realistic fiction book for middle grade readers, especially those looking for LGBTQ+ characters (and even more specifically- non-binary characters).

I think middle graders will fall in love with Essie and Ollies story. They will easily find a connection to both of those characters. This one wasn’t for me but I can see younger people enjoying the story.

3.5 Spin with Me is about the romantic stirrings between two middle school students, a young girl Essie and a nonbinary person Ollie who identifies as they/them. I loved the characters and at the onset of the book I was intrigued that Polonsky chose to present the story from Essie’s perspective. I grew to appreciate this unique point of view to see not only how Essie views Ollie, but how she (and her friends) begin to label and define her. It was a bit unsettling, though when halfway through the perspective does shift to Ollie's and the whole story begins again. I understand Why this was done, but honestly, there wasn’t enough new material to read it over. This could have been done in alternating chapters (“Flipped”by Van Draanan comes to mind). The ARC ebook formatting seemed a bit off as well making the time sequences and text messages somewhat stilted. My honest feeling, though is this could be one of the most well done middle school LGBTQIA+ relationship books out there. They are just so darn cute and as a parent of four and a middle school librarian they really read as 7th graders “in crush.”

Essie is NOT happy when her father takes a four month temporary post at a university in North Carolina and her mother, an artist, inexplicably stays behind in St. Lewis. She's angry that she has to leave her friends behind and enter 7th grade as a new student. Luckily, she is fortunate enough to find friends right away, since Savannah reaches out in the cafeteria. She also connects with Ollie and has a little bit of a crush on him. When Ollie shows up in her gym class locker room, Essie is confused. She finds out that Ollie is nonbinary and uses the pronouns they/them, but still finds herself attracted. Ollis has supportive family, and the school has been okay with a Gender and Love Open-Minded Warriors (GLOW) club. Ollie enlists Essie in helping them increase membership and plan activities for the club. Meanwhile, Essie is struggling with her friends back in St. Louis, who at first seem supportive of her crush on Ollie but who eventually show their true colors. Essie is also dealing with her mother being very aloof, her father making new connections with women in North Carolina, and the uncertainty of her parents' relationship. As her time with Ollie draws to a close, Essie tries to get her parents to allow her to stay for the whole year. We then get the story recounted, in a slightly shorter version, from Ollie's viewpoint.

Strengths: Essie and Ollie were both good characters. Essie's confusion about how her crush on Ollie "labels" her is very realistic, and Ollie's wish to not discuss her gender identity all the time also seems spot on. While Polonsky is not an #ownvoices author, she does have people in her life who identify as transgender. The real draw of this one for me was the parents' marital strife and more specifically, its effect on Essie. There aren't very many books about this; after a brief surge in the 1970s, divorced parents lost ground to deceased ones, although in the last five years there have been a few more. The reaction of her friends back home was interesting, and again, something that a 7th grader would definitely have to consider. Bonus points for Essie moving and not having her house be haunted! Other reviewers have said that the students seemed too mature for 7th grade, but they seemed quite on par with the students I have. More understanding, perhaps, but not more mature.
Weaknesses: The text messages, while definitely a part of modern middle school life, were hard to interpret. Perhaps it was the formatting of the E ARC. I was completely surprised when Essie's story ended and we started back over the same events from Ollie's perspective. This was not a successful ploy; perhaps if the two accounts had alternated, it would have been better, but the accounts were not different enough to really warrant it.
What I really think: Enough of my students ask for LGBTQIA+ that I will purchase this, but the repeat of the story from another perspective really failed to keep my interest.

Spin with Me is the cutest book I've ever read. I can't wait to buy it for my library and put it in the hands of every kiddo! A nonbinary first crush!!! Everyone should read this.

Spin with Me is a all you can hope for in a book, in that it will encourage understanding, build empathy and help act as window to some, while giving some much needed representation to others, being able to see themselves in books. It addresses the conversations of labels, advocacy, pronouns, and accepting people for exactly who they are. The voices feel authentic and the family situations feel realistic. The texting conversations add to story in the same way verbal dialogue does, powering the story forward and helping readers to get more insight into each character and their relationships. I liked seeing the events from two different points of view as well.

Adorable story about two 13 year olds and how they navigate through their first crush. One of the main characters is non-binary. This is not a common thing in middle grade novels, so I was happy to see that. It is a good book to read at the same time as your middle schooler and discuss after reading. I did find that the author made Essie and Ollie too mature for their age, but that was really the only flaw.

I was excited to see a middle grade book addressing gender fluidity and attraction. Unfortunately, I found the writing to be very uneven creating an unrealistic inner monologue for a 7th grader. The author uses large words like "androgynous" and "professiorial" yet the protagonist's actions and descriptions of her feeling feel very young, talking about feeling a "zap" when she sees Ollie. Good concept, but the execution lacked believability.

Spin with Me follows a young girl, Essie, who meets a nonbinary person, Ollie, and develops feelings for them. I absolutely enjoyed the characters, and I found myself questioning throughout the first half how the story would be different if from the perspective of our nonbinary character Ollie and wondered how and why Polonsky made the decision not to do so. Then, halfway through, the perspective does shift to Ollie's and we go through the whole story again. I understand this was probably done so that readers could get the introductory information about what being nonbinary means from the perspective of Ellie, a cis girl and include a first-person narrative for nonbinary readers, but the perspective switch threw me off and had me wishing it was from the point of view of Ollie from the beginning.