A plus-size protagonist?! Yes please! Overall, I loved the storyline and the overall theme of learning to love yourself. While I did not care for the overly pushy activist portrayals, there was very little in this book that I didn't enjoy. I can't wait to get this into the hands of teens.

For Libraries: If you have fans Watson's other books, this is a must-have. And if you don't? You might just want to buy it anyway-it's quite good.

I really enjoyed how this book demonstrates the process of getting right with oneself in order to be ready to love someone else. It also reads as a love letter to Harlem, a place very near and dear to my own heart.

I can definitely envision the teens who would enjoy this book, though I do wonder a little bit if the sort of self help/therapy language the book uses would be too obvious for them? Also, I found it an odd choice for the book to choose recycling as the topic about which to be very strident, given what we know about how recycling in the country is mostly illusory. And I am personally very tired of characters, even teens, when confronted with the idea of vegetarianism, espouse the wonders of bacon. It's so played out! That said, it was still a very heartfelt and enjoyable book with what seemed to me like realistic conflicts and characters to root for.

***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.***

The feelings of wanting to belong, and feeling a need to change who you are come through so strongly in this book. The group dynamics feel very true, with lots of great dialogue between the teens.

Authenticity, laughter, strong character and relationship ties makes this book a winner. In Love is a Revolution the 'plus size girl' is celebrated, even though she makes lists and is seeking love, eventually it will happen, won't it? After all, community activism is worth something right? Learning the difference between self worth and love are two things Nala would be able to offer any reader, lessons well learned as she balances life between living as her authentic self and being someone else just to be loved.

I'm always about plus-size MCs, and the cover of this alone captured my attention. A fat girl getting the guy at the end? Heck yes. A fat girl learning who she is and loving it? Even more of a heck yes. I enjoyed the friendship between Nala and her cousin/sister/friend as well as their mutual best friend, and it was very realistic in how they begin to grow as individuals and learn how to not be codependent on each other. Nala was a little more slow when it came to that, but honestly, I think that was her childhood coming out. I think she gets comfortable with people, and it's hard to branch out from that bubble that you know. I was like that in high school.

I will say, though, that I found the group that her cousin/sister/friend to be a part of to be...almost militant in their ideologies. They were very stringent on their beliefs, and not that they needed to give, but even I had to roll my eyes at them half the time. There was also the constant judging Nala did on the other girls who were passionate about this program. There is, of course, the whole lying to a dude she liked to get him to like her, and the fact that their relationship went from 0 to 60 in 4 seconds flat. This book felt rushed in some parts and dragged on in others. I was disappointed that she never got to do that heritage project where her grandmother lived, and I wish that she would have been able to finally do something that she felt passionate about.

Either way, I enjoyed the book, and I would recommend checking it out when it comes out in a few months.

A lovely romance / coming of age story. Nala was a delight to know, especially as she found the confidence to be exactly who she is. Recommended for teens.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an eARC of Love is a Revolution in exchange for an honest review.

This is how you write a realistically flawed character and use those flaws to show genuine character development. I didn't think I would end up rooting for Nala. We're introduced to her as incredibly jealous of her sister/cousin/best friend Imani, a compulsive liar, and pretty judgey of almost everyone else around her. Watson expertly shows where those character flaws come from and contextualizes them while also not just letting Nala off the hook until she tries to create active change within herself. I loved the journal and list component and how they showed us more of Nala's inner thoughts and character progression.

Nala's grandmother was definitely a highlight here for me, especially with her way of approaching conflict. Nala's love interest was honestly my least favourite aspect even though I get that that's pretty much the whole point and I didn't like where the relationship is at the end of the book (I know that's phrased weirdly, but I don't want to give away what the final outcome of their relationship is) but other than that, this was wonderful.

CW: strained mother/daughter relationship, discussion of body image.

This was a charming, fast paced, coming of age story that balances complex topics with a joyful summer romance. Love Is a Revolution follows Nala Robertson a fat, Black teen girl trying to navigate her life in Brooklyn the summer before her senior year. While attending a local open mic, Nala finds herself telling a few white lies to impress the cute new boy. As she and Tye grow closer, Nala finds her lies increasingly difficult to maintain and will soon discover what it means to express love, including to herself.

First and foremost, I loved that this was actually geared towards teens and struggles they face. I think us adults can often co-opt and dominate the YA space and actual teenagers often get forgotten. Renee Watson doesn't do that. She wrote a messy group of teens that fight, make mistakes and are deeply imperfect. Watson has our main character face consequences for her actions but also gives Nala the grace to learn and atone for her actions. Nala's character arc was fantastic from start to finish.

Thematically speaking this book shines. Specifically, I loved how Watson tackled what it means to be 'woke', through a character that may not be entirely sold on the idea. Nala maybe doesn't want to be an activist dedicating all her free time to saving the world. And yet, she still manages to engage and make change within her community. I loved that Watson explores multiple types activism and still gives her teenagers the room to be teenagers. Also, while there is an element of romance, the main focus is on self-love and how Nala learns to embody it.

I found the prose occasionally choppy and disjointed. I would have preferred the pace of the story to be a little slower with individual scenes being a bit longer. The story as a whole felt a tad rushed.

Love is a Revolution is set to come out on February 2nd, thanks to Bloomsbury YA for providing me an arc

Love is a Revolution is a cute, young adult story about learning to love yourself.

When Nala attends her cousin-sister-friends activist event, she meets Tye. Tye is very involved with his community, is a vegetarian, and cares about saving the environment, while Nala is more interested in binge watching Netflix and spending time with her friends. But Nala wants to impress Tye, so she lies and tells him she volunteers at her grandmothers elderly community and is also a vegetarian. From there, her lies spiral and Nala is on a journey to figure out how to love herself for who she is instead of who she thinks people want her to be.

This book is YA and is definitely written with that audience in mind. There are strong messages about body positivity and the beauty of being a black woman - which is a much needed message!

There were a few things I disliked about this book. The first being the predictability. You knew from the moment the lie left Nala’s lips that it would be what comes back to haunt her.

I also disliked the conflict between Nala and Imani. I felt like having these cousin-sister-friends at odd’s over jealousy and competitiveness pushed an idea of tearing other woman down when something positive happens to them.

And speaking of outdated, I really hated the idea behind Nala lying to a guy to get him to like her.

Overall, I did enjoy the book. It was a quick read and had a feel good vibe about it. I would probably not recommend it to my friends but I do acknowledge that I am definitely not a part of the audience this book and its message is meant for.

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury YA for the eArc in exchange for my honest review.

There’s a sweet romance, there’s friendship and family drama, there’s some seriously funny moments that will make you LOL and some heartfelt moments that open your heart. At its core, Love is a Revolution is all about discovering self-love and being true to yourself.

I loved the main character, Nala, and giggled several times at her easily relatable moments.

There are a lot of things I love about this book.. but one of my favorites was all the lists Nala writes (as a list writer myself). They help you understand her better and even provide some great tips!

I will be recommending and purchasing for some young adults that need this lovely book in their lives.

Thanks to Netgalley and BloomsburyKids for the eGalley!

Love is a revolution : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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Did I mention that the main character from this book is of Jamaican descent and that food like Ackees and salt fish , calaloo, coconut drop, sweet potato pudding and bammy are mentioned throughout. I love seeing my culture reflected back to me . That alone made me hold on to this book a little extra tight .
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This is a cute story about self love, family, first loves and forgiveness . In this story we meet Nala a high school junior with big plan of binge watching TV and hanging out for the summer , but all that change when she’s roped into hanging out with her cousin friends and meet the guy of her dreams .They’re infatuate with each other, the only problem is he doesn’t know the real her . She has changed who she is to fit Into his world , and as her lies continue to build she realizes that in trying to please others she may be losing her true self .
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This story is quick and fast paced, a nice read you can get through in one day. There’s some teenage drama , and a while of lot love for NYC.

It is ok to write a book about a teen and have the writing style and language be more adult. I dislike books in general that have a poor writing style and this book yells that at me. I went into this book for the positive female lead. Hoping for an uplifting book about body image and getting through the “drama” of teenage years to reach maturity. What I got was a book that was going all different ways with body image, shallow friendships, and the main character was unbelievable. I loved the cover and description. Sadly, this book should have been more than was delivered.

I absolutely loved this book. It was so fun, so well-written, and kept me engaged the entire time. Nala was a really strong protagonist, and I loved her arc throughout the novel. This story is really about her journey to self-love, and I love that even though this is a book about beautiful plus-sized girls, Nala's primary struggle in loving herself actually has nothing to do with her weight. She is fully confident in her appearance, and yet she still has other hurts and ways of judging herself that cause her struggle, and I think that's important to have in fiction. And I think it's an important idea that women can be bold and confident while still experiencing significant self-doubt. Nala's journey is realistic and relatable, and this story manages to put a message we may have heard before in a new and refreshing light.

I also love stories in which the main character is interacting at a senior center or nursing home or somewhere with seniors who teach them something. Nala frequently interacts with her grandmother and plenty of others at the facility where her grandmother lives. The dynamic was so fun to read, as well as the other relationships throughout with various family members, friends, and the teens who contribute to Nala's struggle to accept herself. This story felt so very real, and I couldn't stop reading once I started. I'd highly recommend this book to others! 5/5 stars.

This book will be a beautiful addition to any library or book shelf. I do not think it will spend too much time on the shelf because I think there will be many wanting to read it or read it 'next'! I am always sharing and recommending YA books that will touch them deeply and possibly prompt some type of call to action on their part. The conversations that result are amazing and I am so looking forward to gathering with a group of young adults to talk about this book. This is a very relatable and relevant work! So appreciative of all the work that goes into the development of such rich stories. Thank you NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

Nala immediately hooked me. Not only does she make lists for just about everything, but she lets her vulnerability shine on the page. While she may not have plans to conquer the world, for the summer she just wants to find love. Love is a Revolution was extremely character driven as we are wrapped up in Nala's lies and emotions. I loved how Watson delivers Nala, completely, flawed, and as confused as we are. She's relatable because haven't we all told a lie that seemed small, but ends up looming over us?

Having been immersed in a whole group of YAs about passionate, social conscious teens, and loving it, Nala is refreshing in some ways because she's more like how I was at a teen. She loves the music she likes and maybe she doesn't understand some of the implications of it, or why it matters, but in these moments she felt so relatable to who I was. Not who I am now, but I think teens also need characters who meet them where they are now. There are still questions Nala needs to grapple with and answer for herself, but Nala just felt so relatable to me.

Thank you Bloomsbury & NetGalley for sending me an ARC of Love Is a Revolution by Renée Watson. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Wow. Wow. Wow. My heart is wrenched. My perspective is transformed. I truly wish I could get a physical copy of this book and just never ever let it go. I put off reading this book for a while because I wanted to go into the book unbiased. As someone who is a woman of colour and plus-sized (or fat, as the main character Nala's cousin, would say with no shame in her tone) I really wanted to form a holistic opinion and honestly was scared I wouldn't feel accurately and honestly represented, but how wrong I was.

I want to start this off by saying the sypnosis doesn't do this book justice. This to me at least was not a girl who changes herself a guy who she loves. THIS IS A GIRL WHO CHANGES HERSELF TO GROW TO BECOME THE PERSON SHE WANTS TO BE AND WANTS TO LOVE. This is a revolution.

Love Is a Revolution follows Nala, a black teen girl from Harlem as she lives through her summer before senior year. We watch her fall and fly, succeed and kinda awkwardly fail as she tries to figure out who she really is in what began as an attempt to smooth over the facade she created for a boy.

In most typical YA books (especially contemporaries) there is always the main plotline which is usually the romance plot. In Love Is a Revolution, we see Nala as who SHE is in relation to herself, her family, friends, and her complicated relationship with her boyfriend. My heart goes to her for every moment in this story, I was rooting for her, for her family and experiences and I genuinely have so many highlights and annotations that I could fill an entire wall with my favorite quotes and moments.

One of my favorite parts more than even her relationships with others was her relationship with herself. We see a beautiful arc of self-realization and the beginning of acceptance. To me, Nala was written in a realistic, honest way. She was human. She wanted to be wanted, and loved, and thought of and seen. She had the existential crises we all have and the dance parties we all want. She was a perfectly crafted character not because I think she is perfect but because she is not just as those around her weren't. As someone who has someone in my life exactly like Nala's best friend/cousin, I can say without a doubt this is a raw depiction, and while some of the things every character in this book did upset me, I understand why it was done. There were definitely sections in the book (mostly in the beginning) where Nala was a very anti girl to her peers out of jealousy or insecurity which was addressed and honestly, as much as I am very much girls supporting girls, I also know it is very hard to unlearn the negativity and shame culture that is forced on us by media.

Now on a more personal note.

THANK YOU RENÉE WATSON, THANK YOU. Thank you for affirming to me I am not too brown, too big, too loud, too much. Thank you for writing a character that looks like me, that wanted to be loved like me, who wanted to work on herself and be true to herself. THIS is the kind of book we need in YA. THIS is the kind of book that girls need to read growing up, we need so much more content with racial and body diversity that needs to be seen and normalized. Thank you for writing this piece where I felt seen. I can count on less than one hand the number of books I have read with someone like me that I could deeply relate to. Thank you.

This is a great book. Nala uses music and lists to help herself process emotions. I'd say this book is mostly slice of life, but with elements of coming of age. Nala is grappling with changes in her family structure and she meets a boy. All of this is wrapped up in Inspire Harlem, a group her cousin (who she lives with) is extremely involved in. Very PG romance, if that's what you're looking for. Set in the summer before senior year.

This book was so beautiful. There are moments where Nala is unlikeable, heartwarming, and just so genuine. Beautiful character development and complicated interpersonal dynamics had me finish this one in two days!

There were a lot of aspects to this book I thought were great! Nala’s lack of interest in activism and feeling pressured by her cousin to be more active is an interesting perspective that I’m sure many can relate to. I also really liked reading about her interest in finding her own identity, and the fact that her relationship with her mother was not perfect but also was left as it was. On the other hand, I found it hard to get too deeply into Nala’s story. Her voice seemed very much like an observer rather than an active character in the book. I couldn’t get invested.

This book follows Nala as she learns to deal with her first relationship and changing friendships. I found this book to be incredibly relatable and interesting, but I also had a couple issues with it.

First! The things I loved about this book. I really loved the premise of this story. This is one of my favorite tropes out there, the whole person lying to get into a relationship and having to keep this up. There were a lot of funny moments that had me cracking up. There were also quite a bit of emotional moments. A lot of the time, I felt like I could really understand nala's character. I think the story was the best part of this book.

That being said, there were a couple things I didn't like. Mostly, I just wasn't a fan of the writing style. It felt as if I was watching the story go down through a window. There just wasn't a connection between the characters and the reader, it was a much more plot driven book. The lack of emphasis on the characters made me feel disconnected and not understand the motivations for some of the decisions that were made.

Overall, the book was enjoyable, but it wasn't my favorite.