lowkey forgot to review this after reading it but i loved it so so much. the representation of friendship was so perfect and powerful and it was absolutely something i loved reading.

* full review to come later *

*I received this book in exchange of an honest review.

Eleanor and Chanel are best friends who've cheered together all of their high school careers. Eleanor is trying to come back after physical therapy for a severe concussion during a stunt gone bad. Chanel spent all summer at an all star cheerleading camp. The girls each have something to prove this year. College futures, national championships, and the stirrings of a possible romance have the girls questioning themselves and their friendship. When the cheerleading squad decides to support an alum and kneel during a football game, fallout happens that no one expects.

Eleanor and Chanel are characters that many can relate to. Eleanor begins a possible relationship with star quarterback, Three, that makes her question herself because of his strong willed family. She has to grapple with her intentions as well as his. Three comes from a long line of professional football players who expect him to achieve this dream as well. Eleanor sees herself in his dreams, but can't please his family.

Chanel has her sights set high and she pushes herself even harder. Everything she does has a goal in mind, getting accepted to her dream school. Some of the things she does in order to achieve this dream, puts an extreme amount of pressure on her to the point of snapping. Her relationship with her family and Eleanor takes hits because of this push.

The girls discover one of their high school alums, a professional athlete, kneels for a cause. He strives to bring attention to the discrepancies in the country he lives in. Chanel and Eleanor take this cause to heart and decide to kneel at the first football game. None of them are expecting the fall out that comes with this choice. The book centers a lot on the growth of the girls through the lens of social justice. The book does a great job showcasing how social activism can push buttons of the people we've known our whole lives and how we can do things to create change. I appreciated this book because while it centers on social change, it definitely shows that movements are not centered on moments. It's also important to back up the cause in other ways as well, like becoming involved in the community we live in. I definitely recommend this book to all students looking to make a change in their world and who are unsure of their future.

Such an incredible topic! I encourage readers on both sides of the 'sideline activism' topic to read this to gain perspective. This was also an eye-opener to the different outcomes for Black individuals vs. white individuals for peaceful protests. Loved this book!

Best friend breakups are so hard, y’all. Seriously, the worst. So be prepared when you dive into Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal’s latest masterpiece WHY WE FLY—this book offers so much more than pompoms and matching bows and cheer (even though those things were pretty important to me many moons ago!)
- this book has so much heart and so much sadness
- set in 2019, before The Summer of 2020, WHY WE FLY is an omage, a standing ovation, if you will, to the athletes who took a stand by taking a knee before it was cool or on brand.
- the silent protest led by the competition cheer team quickly balloons into a wildfire of media and school-level backlash, and only one of the girls is burned. By looking at the cover, you can probably infer which girl is suspended and which is not.
- Why We Fly offers the unique perspective of a dual-narrative explored through two different lenses, much how Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely did with All American Boys.
- with topics of social injustice, pressures to succeed, knowing the right way and the wrong way to help, losing and finding yourself, and losing your person and then…not finding them again, gah, I could go on forever.
- My favorite part of this book comes from the conversation Leni has with her Rabbi. He asks her the difference between being an ally and an accomplice. It reminded me so much of a lesson I teach during my Holocaust Lit Unit where we define and discuss the differences between Ally, Advocate, and Accomplice. The levels of involvement and skin in the game, if you’re one for sports metaphor.
- This one is incredible. Period. Read it right meoooow.

A good introductory read for teens just becoming aware of or involved in social justice. Why We Fly didn’t have as strong a message as Dear Martin and Dear Justyce, but it is still a powerful read. Chanel and Eleanor are flawed and realistic. A great choice for a high school or YA collection, or for that budding activist in your own life.

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcefire books for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Wow. Kimberly and Gilly have done it again. The power of the message of this book… I wish I could put into words the feelings I went through reading this. It was absolutely phenomenal. It takes a special book to not only convey the message of equality, but to do it with such mastery and precision in which the reader feels exactly what the characters go through is a feat. They did just that.

Chanel and Elenor were both well developed and relatable characters. As was the story telling. All too often we see consequences come for some but not others. While it was very clear in message and execution, I enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t clean or precise. It wasn’t some grand event, because in reality, even with social media it might’ve have ended the same way in real life. I think this book was fabulous. I can’t wait to see what these two put out next!

This is a very timely concept about protests, fall-out, racial inequities and allies vs. activists. I thought the characters were well-developed and the story started out strong. I even was interested how the authors explored the fall-out and the confusion of the effects through the teens' eyes. I did think the friendships seemed shallow but that could have been the author's intent to highlight high school friendships. I wished that there was more focus on the connection between Leni and Nelly, or why people liked Leni so much.

The strengths outnumbered the weaknesses in the book and I felt that the author's did a good job of using a flawed narrator who didn't have all the answers even though she thought she did. She tried to be an ally but ended up embodying a white savior role. This would be an interesting book to use to start discussions about allies, activists, and our role in society for a high school setting.

I received an ARC months ago and just found it on my Kindle earlier today. Yes, today. I read straight through it without stopping. So, why, you ask, is it only a 4 and not a 5? I think it is simply the age old problem I have with neat and tidy endings. I mean, this one is. It completely neat and tidy…there are things that weren’t tied up in a happily ever after. But the MCs still skated past major repercussions and that just bugs me.

However, it’s a great story and a necessary one and I am glad I found it today. I dig the back and forth style of the books these authors have written together and I like the surprises that I won’t mention to avoid spoilers but which smacked me upside my clearly stereotyping head!!! It was both embarrassing and liberating to have my bias shoved in my face.

Great read. Definitely buying it for the collection! 💜💜💜📚

A social justice book fitting for our time. I wish that we saw more of the fight to remove Chanel's suspension. I thought that the teen characters acted like teens which was refreshing to read.

The first half of Why We Fly was really slow moving. There was a lot of character setup and backstory, but it could be difficult to read as some of the characters read as very unlikeable. The middle started to pick up, but I still felt like it fell short of the message it was trying to portray. It felt like a surface level look at issues of race and friendship. Overall, 3 stars.

'Why We Fly' covers an important and topical subject. It follows two teenage cheerleaders who have been best friends since childhood who decide to take the knee at their games in solidarity with an alum from their school who did it. This has far-reaching consequences in terms of school, future prospects, and their relationships with each other, significant others, friends, and family.

This is told in two POV's and whilst I took a while to warm up to Nellie's character and perspective I rooted for her 100% by the end. There is a lot of representation in this, including both of the main characters. Nellie is black and Leni is Jewish and their backgrounds are woven into the story and color how they are treated and perceived.

I will be honest in that I did much prefer the first two-thirds of the books and I found the ending a little anti-climatic and felt that there were several loose ends that weren't tied up by the conclusion. As well as a lot of characters that flitted in and out with very little real purpose.

The writing style is engaging and the plot is paced well. It's an intriguing story with impactful main characters and overall I really enjoyed this.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fiercereads for providing me with this ARC of Why We Fly!

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. The first half was slow in my view, but the rest of the book was a quick read with a lot of action. I just felt that it didn’t quite hit what I expected for a novel focusing on social justices. Of course this book did include that, but it felt like it was very much on the surface and never went super deeply. I am unsure if this is because I am older than the characters in this story so their actions didn’t hit me as strongly as they could have or otherwise. However, I do still feel as if this book portrayed a good message. I really enjoyed seeing how Leni grew throughout the book, and enjoyed seeing how other characters such as Three were affected throughout the story.

I hope that the teenagers that do read this book receive the message as was intended. Thank you again for this arc!

⭐️⭐️⭐️

overview: it was alright. the plot was good, but it moved slow in the first half. the characters were all unlikeable, but they were built up really well


- the cheer team doesn't kneel until halfway through the book. the first half is character building and background. I wished the action started earlier, because once it did it didn't stop
- I didn't like any of the characters except aunt rhonda (queen!). leni and chanel's holier than thou attitudes sucked. they weren't good friends to each other, and nelly only cared about her own success. three was flat and showed almost no growth. three's parents were dreadful and so toxic, and my heart breaks for anyone whose parents put that kind of pressure on them.
- the cheer lingo was weird. it felt like it was written by people who know about cheer but were trying to write for people who don’t know about cheer, so they used this weird stereotypical cheer language, and it was weird for me (as someone who cheered for a large part of my life)

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book had so much potential to really portray social justice issues from a teenage mindset, and I thought that on the surface, it did do that. However, I also felt like it was lacking in several respects. For one, I felt like the incidence of antisemitism was just sort of skimmed over. For another, I couldn’t help but wonder why Eleanor was so oblivious to how Chanel and Three might experience backlash from the protest differently because they’re Black. Also, I wondered how her being Jewish might affect her, considering that the South overall doesn’t seem like an OVERLY welcoming place for anyone not white or Christian, and while she is white, she certainly isn’t Christian, and I felt like that would get her some more backlash than it did.

As a surface level insight into issues of race and the progression of high school friendships, I felt like this book did what it said on the tin. I just wished that the authors had taken the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the issues being discussed and their effect on the characters.

I'm really glad I read this book. As an adult, I sometimes think most YA novels are smarter and better than general literary fiction, and I try to keep up with the titles of the moment so I can see what the younger generations are reading.

"Why We Fly" takes a fictionalized story based on the Colin Kaepernick story, and tells the story of how it affects the high school that this famous athlete is an alumnus of. It shows how white students and Black students react and feel, and how they differ, though they're all in support of the same endgame.

I hope a lot of teens read this. I think it's an incredibly intelligent way of framing the way race relations are felt and heard in the present day, and is an excellent, thought provoking antidote to social media discourse and the nightly news. Highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Overall this was a great book with good representation and a really excellent message. The authors' note at the start set up the intentions and messages of the story really well and definitely shouldn't be skipped. It's really really valuable to have a book for teens that explores getting into activism in the age of social media, and I think it was a great decision to set the book before the 2020 BLM protests. The representation of what it's like learning about activism and how to be a good ally and accomplice was pretty good, especially from Leni's end. It's easy to make mistakes when you don't know what you're doing, and it was good to see Leni have to navigate that.

It took a little too much time to get to the moment where they actually kneel, almost 50% of the way through, which didn't leave quite enough space to explore everything that came after (the fallout, Leni and Chanel's changing friendship, and Leni and Three's relationship issues). The point of only Chanel receiving the punishment for kneeling because she's Black could have been made more strongly. It was definitely implied, but I also didn't get a good enough sense of the racial makeup of the cheer team to be 100% sure that that's what was going on. Someone did explicitly say it at some point, but it was much later in the book so it was too removed from when Chanel's suspension actually happened to have the same amount of impact. Following on from that though, it was a little unrealistic that Three didn't really suffer any consequences for kneeling with the cheer team at all, even though he, like Chanel, is also Black.

I liked Chanel's character arc, which I think represented really well how much harder BIPOC have to work to get the same things as white people, and I was really glad that she seemed to be going into the next phase of her life with a much healthier mindset. Leni's personal character arc was good, especially her exploration of activism and her issues stemming from her injury, but her relationship with Three was quite unsatisfying. It's very obvious of course that Three was going through a lot, but after starting out really nice and sweet, he suddenly became quite horrible to Leni for most of the book, and yet they came back together again so quickly at the end. Their conversation at the end was good because they both acknowledged that they were at fault, but too much was abbreviated into that short conversation that should have happened over a longer period of time. It also didn't sit right with me that Three only comes back to Leni AFTER he's secured everything he wants in life.

I did like that Chanel and Leni drifted apart as the book progressed, because it felt very true to real-life high school friendships. It represented really well that you have different friends at different times in your life, and that it's fine if some friendships don't survive periods of big transition.

Overall, although I felt the characters lacked a bit of depth and nuance, this was a good book with a great message!

Why We Fly is a contemporary novel about two teens in a cheer squad and the decisions they make regarding social justice. It is a really powerful and important read about being an ally, and how sometimes when you try to do something good it doesn’t turn out that great. I thought this book was really good. I love the authors and their other works, so I was excited about this one and really enjoyed it.

It follows Eleanor and Chanel as their friendship is facing a rocky patch and their cheerleading squad decides to take a knee, and while at first it seems like a show of solidarity and support, just pushes them further apart. I liked that Eleanor was white and Chanel was Black because I could see how they each reacted differently to the situations around them regarding race and social justice.

I really liked all the characters and thought they were all so different from each other which made it really interesting, but mainly the two POVs. I enjoyed the character development because I found it interesting to see how their actions, which were almost the same, made them have different resolutions and how both of them came to terms with the whole concept of social justice.

I think every teen should read this, because it highlights the parts of social justice that happen behind the scenes and that you don’t normally see on social media. I think that is really important to learn about. It is absolutely worth reading. Anyone with an interest in social justice, powerful women, and complex friendships will probably enjoy it.

First off the rep in this book is awesome! We have strong POC rep and Jewish rep!

I loved the scenes with Leni and her Rabbi. It was so wonderful to see a non-religious Jewish character embrace their religion and seek guidance from a Rabbi.

This book tackles a lot of really timely topics such as systemic racism and white privilege, while still keeping a high school feel. I found the way these topics were discussed was well done.

Chanel and Eleanor have been best friends for years. They are different in many ways. Chanel is Black. Eleanor is Jewish. They share similarities: both cheer, both have parents who are involved and care about their futures. Their senior year proves to be a strain on their relationship as racism rears it’s ugly head.

There is so much to like about the book that will make it easy to recommend to my high school library students. The social injustice theme and the ensuing backlash will spark important discussions.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I was thrilled to receive this ARC, and will be buying a physical copy for the little free library I maintain in my town, because I believe this is a book that young people need to read. It gets to the heart of the issues facing our society today, while also driving home the idea that it’s not about moments, but the movement. It’s definitely a YA book, and the issues around race and social justice are presented appropriately for the target age group, while also depicting the other challenges teenagers face - pressure at home, stress over college applications and grades, pushing for athletic success, navigating difficult friendships. It’s relatable and honest, and I’m grateful I had the chance to read it.