I enjoyed this book! It was a quick, and fun read. I feel like it's a book a lot of baby gay high schoolers would love. It's got great diversity, so I think everyone would relate to something in the book. That's something I really appreciated in the book. There was an asexual character, an aromantic character, and so many more identities. Another aspect I liked was that Ophelia didn't get the girl at the end. And she wasn't super mad or sad about it. I thought it was really realistic, considering they're just in high school and they didn't get to meet new people yet.
Although this book was enjoyable, the plot felt a little slow for me in some parts.
However, I'm glad I stuck till the end because the ending was really cute. It was like the end of a coming-of-age movie. Really nostalgic.

Ophelia After All was my first read of 2022, and I’m thrilled to say I absolutely loved this hilarious, touching, and introspective story from start to finish.

I had the delightful experience of starting this book, knowing within the first 50 pages that I was going to love it, and loving it even more than I expected by the end. This is an expertly crafted novel with so much heart it’s bursting at the seams. The way the coming out/of age narrative is explored is both earnest and incredibly nuanced, and I found myself surprised over and over at how fresh, unique, and personal Ophelia’s story felt to me. It was so fun to see all the plotlines become even more complex and high stakes in the second half of the book—I felt even more invested as the drama ramped up, but my connection to all of the characters deepened significantly, too. One of the standout reasons I loved this book so much was Ophelia’s friends and family, who are so complex and utterly human that I felt I was eavesdropping on a real group of people’s lives in the best way.

This five-star gem is perfect for LGBT+ readers coming into their identities, and I so wish I could somehow travel back in time and deliver it to my high school self. But after reading this as a twenty-something, I’d also urge folks who came out long ago to pick this up and bring a little sunshine into their lives. It was so sweet, satisfying, and poignant to see my teenage struggles portrayed so accurately within the pages of this book, and it’s for that exact reason I believe Ophelia After All will long hold a special place in my heart.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From my review for the Seattle Times:
Senior year of high school is quite a trip. No one understands this better than Ophelia Rojas, the charming protagonist of Marie’s debut novel. Faced with the usual identity crises and lost innocence, she’s also trying to understand her burgeoning queerness. Ophelia is grounded in her Latina heritage, her love of rose gardening and her cheerful boy-craziness—but her feelings for her new friend Talia are throwing the last one into doubt. Talia and a wide array of side characters, many also LGBTQ+, navigate prom, graduation, joy, and heartbreak alongside Ophelia. It’s in their relationships that Marie’s writing shines: the little dramas of high school feel like they do at 18, with appropriate weight and pathos. The novel is refreshingly unpredictable, free of cliché. Less successful is the dialogue. Particularly in the second half, some lines read more like Wikipedia entries on social issues or queer identities than authentic teenager-speak. It’s the mark of a promising author still developing her ear. Nonetheless, Ophelia After All’s heartfelt celebration of queerness, self-discovery and coming-of-age will win your heart.

Racquel Marie's Ophelia After All is a genuine and authentic representation of the uncertainties and anxieties that can come with the young queer experience. It was beautifully written, had amazing character development, and felt inclusive with a diverse group of characters--both in racial and ethnic diversity and in diversity within queer identities. Ophelia has always been Ophelia: boy crazy, Cuban, future botanist, and best friend of Sammie and Agatha. But what if Ophelia is more than that? What if Ophelia is something or someone she never even considered yet? How does a high school senior cope with the anxiety about shattering her family and friends' perfect image of who Ophelia is supposed to be? This story was funny and heartbreaking (and I may have actually cried near the end). I've been recommending it to friends and colleagues since chapter four.

Racquel has put so much love into this book -- and it shows! Ophelia gets right all the messy and hopeful bits of being a teenager. I loved getting to follow on this journey.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ophelia After All is about a young, loving girl named Ophelia during her Senior Year of High School, trying to find herself in a time of her life where she doesn’t know who she truly is. Ophelia has a great friend group throughout the entire book that helps her along the way. This book is such an accurate portrayal of what it means to figure out you are queer in High School, and those internal battles of who you were vs. who you are discovering yourself to be. Ophelia goes through hardships with her friends, but the character growth within Ophelia herself and her friends is just astonishing. The representation was just amazing. There is Latine, biracial, black, and korean characters in the book (and more if i’m not mistaken). There is also an insane amount of queer rep, including but not limited to: bisexuality, pansexuality, asexuality, biromanticism, and aromanticism.

This was a wonderful story that made me feel a lot. An easy 5 stars for me, and I cannot wait to see what Racquel Marie will write in the future.

this was such a sweet book. it follows rose-gardening, crush-prone Ophelia through the end of senior year as she questions her sexuality, navigates friendship tensions, and ultimately lets go of fixed ideas she had about herself. the complicated friend group intertwining, full of banter and secrets and uncertainty about whether anyone will even stay in touch after graduation, was written with such tenderness. so too was the sunset-hued queer awakening crush - i adored Talia. i did find it difficult to be invested in the prom plotline, but i know that's just me. i hope all the questioning girls, Cuban-American girls, and anyone else who might be seen by this story will pick it up and cry and laugh and feel that they can grow and blossom just like Ophelia.

Ophelia After All is the coming of age story that every young queer woman of color needs to have on their bookshelf. This is a beautiful book about love, but it is not a romance. Ophelia learns how to love herself, welcome change with open arms, and communicate with her loved ones about change. This book was relatable, funny, and sweet– the experiences of Ophelia and her friend group are very common in high school groups which made this an especially enjoyable read. Ophelia After All is a love letter to any teen who has ever dealt with the anxiety and confusion that can come from self-discovery. I can’t wait for the rest of the world to read this book!

Ophelia After All follows Ophelia and her group of friends as the end of high school approaches. With prom and graduation right around the corner, they are coming to terms with the fact that they will all be going their separate ways for college in a few months. With all these changes coming Ophelia’s way she is surprised that she is also now finding herself questioning her sexuality. She has always been deemed boy-crazy but the one person she can’t seem to get out of her head is none other than Talia Sanchez. Ophelia doesn’t know what this means for her but she knows this is something she is not quite ready to talk to her parents or friends about. She finds herself having an inner struggle with what questioning her sexuality means when it comes to the expectations that others have of her and wanting to be true to herself. Through the course of this book, Ophelia begins to realize that she doesn't need to have all the answers about her identity right at this moment, that it’s okay for this to be a journey and one that goes at her own pace. She knows that she still has a lot of new life experiences coming her way and is finally accepted that it’s never too late to learn more about herself or her friends.

I will say that there is a point towards the end of the book where I had to stop reading and just let myself cry for Ophelia. And I really just wanted to climb into the book and hug her.

Racquel Marie truly has such beautiful LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC representation in this book!

CW (from the author): mentions of underage drinking and vaping, topical mentions of sex, cut-off use of a homophobic slur (challenged), condemned homophobia, discussion of anti-Blackness within a mixed-race Latine family (challenged)

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, and Feiwel & Friends for this advanced copy.

I was really excited about this book. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to my expectations. It felt a little too preachy and too much tell and not show. I understand the book was about queerness and self acceptance but at some point it started to feel outlandish that every single character was coming out as a different queer identity. The relationships also didn’t feel as impactful and important as the author was saying they were. Ophelia went through rollercoasters of emotions and I didn’t care about most of them. The writing just wasn’t really that good. Pretty rudimentary.

A heart-warming, queer coming of age story--we love to see it.

This book follows 17-year-old Cuban-Irish teenager Ophelia Rojas through her last few months of high school, as she navigates figuring out her future and sorting out aspects of her identity that she never realized were there.

Ophelia is the type of girl who knows what she likes: Cuban food, botany, her close-knit group of pals, and romance. Her friends and family gently make fun of her for being "boy crazy" and for her endless stream of crushes, but Ophelia can't help it--she's a true romantic at heart. Still, it comes as a surprise to her when she starts feeling FEELINGS about Talia, a sweet, quiet girl from one of her classes. Add this to the expected drama of end-of-high-school, looming future plans, and family expectations, and it's no surprise that things start to spiral out of control.

As Ophelia begins to unpack the new feelings and aspects of her identity coming to light, she has to figure out now to navigate the life she always expected to have versus the life she realizes she now wants--how she can, in the end, be Ophelia, after all.

****
I really enjoyed this book! There is much to love here, but let me list a few things that I especailly appreciated:

It's heart-warming coming of age tale
Listen, I know what I like, and I llike a coming-of-age narrative. I think that these particular years of a young person's llife are so formative and important: the last years of high school, where we straddle the world between being a kid and an adult, and really coming into our own. I thought that setting the story in Ophelia's last few months of High School really set the scene for the type of "becoming" we see in the story: she is grappling not only with her family's expectations of her, but with her own expectations of how she expects her future to be, and realizing that the new feelings she's having kind of upend that expectation.

Identity exploration and queer rep
This was probably my favorite aspect of the book.. I feel like it did a really good job at navigating the intricacies of both sexuality and racial/ethnic background, and now those things intersect. The characters in the book run the gamut of queer identities as well, including several identities that I don't often see represented in novels: we see bisexual and pansexual characters, as well as aromantic and asexual characters. I thought that the author did a really good job at unpacking the lesser-represented idenities, explaining how someone could be a biromantic asexual, for example. I also thought it was great that the author really drove home the idea that it is fine to not be sure where you fit amongst the labels (as was the case for Ophelia, our protagonist).

I also appreicated that even though Ophelia has a relatively good/strong relationship with both her parents as well as her friend group, we still see her struggling with "coming out" to them, when she recognizes her sexuality. I think that this is an important thing to highlight in these sort of stories: That even if it "should" be easy, it often isn't, and it's important to represent that in these kind of narratives,.

The friend group!
Okay I was obsessed with Ophelia's friend gorup. For real, I am a whole ADULT and I found myself envious of how tightknight and accepting this group of teenagers was. I loved them all. I loved Ophelia's relationships with Sammie and Agatha especially, as well as the strenghthening bond thorughout the story between Ophelia and Wesley/Talia.

Literary references
I am a Nerd, so I really dug the references thorughout the book to Shakespeare/literature, haha.

THE ENDING
I won't spoil it, but I will say this: I really, really loved that this story did not have the ending I expected--but that it was still a satisfying, happy ending.

Overall this was a super sweet book and I am so glad to have read it. Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for the e-ARC :)

I thought this book was cute! a lovely storyline about a girl discovering her sexuality. I thought the author's way of going about this story was wonderful: it was realistic, and I think a lot of young people will enjoy reading about problems they face, especially in high school. Racquel Marie understands teenagers, and it is evident through this novel. Can't wait to read her books in the future.

<i>"But sometimes, when you've known someone for years and they build up this image of you, it's hard to talk about things that mess with that image. It feels like you'd be breaking some bond of trust between you and that person by being different than you were before. I don't just mean subtle, slow changes. I mean, like, the big things that they never saw coming."</i>

TL;DR: Equal parts coming-out story and prom-ance (prom romance) whose power lies in representation rather than story, and where most of the conflict could have been resolved if the characters had just talked to each other in the beginning as honestly as they did in the end.
<b><i>I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.</b></i>

Vibes: Elizabeth Acevedo + Julie Murphy's <i>Dumplin</i>

Genre: Contemporary, True-YA Queer Romance
**Definitely True-YA

Character MVP: Easily Wesley. He's the character with the most complexity & depth, but also the most heart.

Verdict: I jinxed myself in my last review when I said that 2022 books were either Great or Crap. This one was okay. It was <i>fine</i>. Nothing really annoyed me or angered me -- except for the seemingly odd shortening of the female names -- Agatha --> Ags; Lindsay --> Linds -- which seemed a bit unnecessary and awkward -- but nothing really stayed with me after I finished it either.

Before I go any further, let me quote a passage from Marie's book:

<i>"Even if none of them click for me, if none sound like my experience wrapped up in a convenient label, I know they do for other kids out there. Kids who may have sat exactly where I am now and realized who they were for the first time. Today, that's enough for me.</i>

Because here's the thing: this book is important, and it needs to be published, and it needs to be read. It will, 100%, affect some readers in a positive, important, powerful way. There is a lot of beautiful, wonderful diversity in this book (almost a bit too much, with everyone having a Coming Out moment at the end; I realize that may be the point, that the world isn't binary or easily categorized, and that's fine -- it was just a lot at the end. More on that below.) and that diversity should be celebrated and should be represented. This is a book that I would absolutely recommend, and I would more than likely buy a copy for my home library. I think it promotes acceptance and forgiveness and captures well that adolescent "I-don't-know-who-I-am" shitshow through a queer lens.
<b>It just wasn't the book for me.</b>

And that's okay.

One of the biggest factors is that I'm not a big fan of contemporary romance in general, YA or any genre. I'm a romantic, but prefer stories where romance isn't the primary focus. And there's *a lot* of romance here, mainly centering around prom and promposals and who's taking who to prom.

I think I just wanted...more.
I wanted something else outside of prom-drama to balance out the Coming Out narratives. And I know this was supposed to take place in NorCal, but there wasn't much to distinguish it or make the setting stand out.
I wanted to know more about Ophelia; she wasn't the most dynamic character for me, and even her defining quirky trait -- she gardens! -- faded out in the middle of the book.
I wanted more history. Here's this friend group, and we see them for 2-3 weeks of their senior year, solely focused on prom. Minor characters only enter the story if they're important to the narrative and then they're gone (Lucas, Jeremiah, Dani).

The one thing I wanted less of was the ending and the characters -- mostly Ophelia's -- neat, pact revelations and realizations. Again, because the plot occurred within such a short amount of time, the realizations seemed rushed: we get Ophelia's queer awakening and then BAM. A few fights, lots of tears, and everything is resolved with some good messaging at the end to drive the point home. You need those moments -- of course you do, they drive home the point of the book -- but after the fifth one, I stopped counting and they lost their oomph. Everything resolved just a bit too neatly.

Overall, a <i>fine</i> book, and one which really kinda proves the need for YA publishing/marketing to have some serious conversations with itself. Sometimes, you get a book that's labeled YA, and has teenage characters, but it doesn't feel "adolescent" -- I'm thinking of Maggie Stiefvater or Anna-Marie McLemore. And sometimes, like here, you get a YA book that's "true YA." Which is NOT a bad thing, just something we need to figure out how to address: YA has become such a sprawling category that it can be overwhelming.

This book was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it did not disappoint. Probably one of the best coming of age stories I've read in a minute, OAA explores coming to terms with your sexuality, finding who you are and facing the reality that growing up means change.

This is a stunning debut by Marie, full of extremely lovable characters, diversity and beautiful quotes.

Readers really get to know and love even side characters like Zaq and Agnes.

Marie really captured the hurt, confusion and isolation that a sexuality crisis can cause as well as how people who love you the most can be the easiest to hurt.

Ophelia is a deeply relatable character who is realizing some confusing things about herself and simultaneously bottling up all the feelings that come with that. Her pushing those closest to her away and not wanting to mess up the expectations of her was very accurate and never came across as overdramatic as it could have with a less focused plot,

Also well done was the confusing and isolating feelings that come with being a person of color and being Latine and white. Ophelia is torn between two cultures but feels whole in neither.

This translates well to her sexuality as well, where she hasn't labeled herself yet but sees herself as not straight but also invalidates herself being queer. That "not ___ enough" is a common struggle that was explored through Ophelia perfectly.

Even with how much I love and relate to Ophelia, she is still a human, which includes flaws, messiness and even bitchiness at times.

The only complaint I have is that the beginning was a bit slow and took a while to get to get into. Once the plot got moving, it was hard to put down the book.

A beautiful coming of age story following Ophelia Rojas as she, not only questions her identity, but questions what it means to be both queer and Latine. As a queer Latine myself, I am honored to have received an ARC of this beautiful book. I am excited to see what else Racquel Marie puts out there.

Ophelia is exactly who I was in high school: boy-crazy, surrounded by all of her friends, and dealing with the usual ups and downs of being a teenager. While I couldn't relate to all of the struggles of being a person of color questioning their sexuality, so much of what Ophelia went through resonated with me. This is the book I wish I had as a teenager who hid a huge piece of them from themselves and the world. I was literally sobbing on my floor while reading the last 20% of this book. I don't even have the words to describe this, and can only say that I genuinely believe that this is the most impactful YA book I've ever read. Ophelia After All is a work of art and I hope the author gets the love she deserves for this novel.

this book took me by surprise.

i have heard so many great things about it for a while now, because i've been following the author and some of her friends on twitter. i was so so so scared it wouldn't live up to the hype, but i was wrong. it is FANTASTIC.

this is a sweet book about a girl's coming of age, friendship, sexuality, roses, shakespear, and family. i loved everything about it. i loved (almost) every character. (lindsay, i never liked you but whatever)

this was funny, it was sweet, it was endearing, it was amazing and i wish i could reread it for the first time.

i'm so thankful i got to have an arc!

i liked it :) i think it was pretty good but at times i think it was a bit slow and i feel like the conflict was resolved in an instant lol but maybe that’s just me ! i think the message overall was really nice and it was a very enjoyable read! gracias to netgalley

Ophelia After All, by Racquel Marie, follows Ophelia Rojas, a Cuban-American girl who is known to her family and friends as the girl who loves gardening and gets crushes on every boy she meets. During the spring of her senior year, she begins to struggle with confronting the fact that she has a crush on a girl from her government class, and trying to figure out what exactly that means for the image that she and everybody close to her have always had of who she is. Meanwhile, she and her friends dealing with the same end-of-senior year crises and drama that everybody else is.

This is fundamentally a book about growing up and realizing that you don't know yourself as well as you'd previously thought.

I love Ophelia as a character, She unapologetically adores gardening and taking care of her roses, even solely wearing flower-related clothing. She's completely unashamed of her copious number of crushes, though she is sensitive when made fun of for it, particularly with the tendency of those around her to label her as "boy-crazy" while she is trying to figure out her sexuality (unbeknownst to them). She loves her friends and family and is nervous about the future in a way that every high-school senior (including myself) can relate to.

I really appreciated the representation in this book. In addition to Ophelia's self-discovery and coming to terms with her own sexuality (I don't believe she ever has a label, though she's still figuring herself out. I'm guessing from the descriptions she gives of her relationship with attraction, where she says that gender doesn't matter to her, that she's probably pansexual, but she could be bi or just identify as queer), there's also a biromantic asexual character (which the bidemisexual in me loved), two bisexual characters, and an aromantic character. The casual aspec representation is something that's so rarely done in books, particularly those where it isn't a main focus, and I throughly appreciated it. Additionally, her entire struggle with trying to figure out her identity is done extremely well; it feels natural and compelling.

I also enjoyed Ophelia's relationship with her parents. Her mother is white and her father is Cuban, and there's some discussion of what her parents' cultures mean to her and how they influence her, though it isn't a central focus of the book. She's really close with both of them, which makes it even harder for her when she's struggling with her sexuality, but feels like she can't tell them without ruining the image of her that they have. Their family is by no means perfect, but it feels so real and loving and I just adored reading about it.

I have more mixed opinions on Ophelia's friends. Their friend group dynamic felt very toxic to me; the two boys in it, Sammie and Wesley, are completely obsessed with Lindsay, one of the other girls. The two boys are horrible to each other and act super possessive of Lindsay, while she just strings them along, and it's just a horrible dynamic to read about. I like the two boy characters separate from that situation; Sammie is Ophelia's best friend since childhood, having grown up as neighbors. They're very close, and honestly I shipped them even though I knew that it wasn't going to happen; they had so much more chemistry than any other couple in the book ever did. Meanwhile, Wesley is the "new boy" to the group (of over a year), and he's a artist who's really supportive of Ophelia during the entire book, and I just really loved him. However, both Sammie and Wesley become unbearable during the scenes devoted to the love triangle. Meanwhile, Agatha, Ophelia's best friend besides Sammie, is a cool character, but we just don't see much of her; she's not really involved in any of the book's main plotlines. Talia was honestly only okay; I never got what Ophelia saw in her.

I appreciate the level of honesty with which the book handles relationships and friend-group dynamics; everything and everybody is messy in a way that feels very real. It's something that's very rarely seen in YA books, but which feels so compelling when done right, which Ophelia After All does really well. The discussion of the end of senior year and how that affects all of the characters felt so real to me, especially as somebody who's approaching the end of high school right now. No character is looking at the approaching change that college will bring to their lives in the same way; they all have their own individual concerns and hopes that fit so well into their personalities as to feel completely natural. Racquel Marie clearly knew these characters inside and out, and the book comes alive because of that.

My central issue with the book is simply that I couldn't get on board with the conclusion. It feels like it leaves too many of the character arcs and subplots a little too unresolved, which is something that always bothers me, and is central reason that I'm only giving the book four stars.

Overall, I really enjoyed Ophelia After All. It's a beautiful coming-of-age story that, rather than focusing on characters discovering their identity, allows for them to not know exactly who they are or who they want to be yet, and in that way feels incredibly true to the age group that it's depicting. Ophelia is a compelling protagonist, and her journey of discovering her sexuality is depicted in such a wonderful and realistic way. Although I have issues with some of the characters and with the conclusion, I overall thoroughly enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to anybody looking for a coming-of-age story, a well-written book about queer self-discovery, or a book about life transitions and accepting that you can't be certain what life has in store for you, and that is completely okay.

I was scared I just didn't like YA contemporaries anymore, but it turns out I just wasn't picking up the right ones. Ophelia After All is a wonderful coming-of-age (and coming-out!) story about a girl who is learning how to move on from one stage of life to the next. There are so many nuanced discussions about identity, and not just sexual orientation. The way Racquel Marie addresses the intersectionality of race, particularly the experience of being from two different cultures and feeling out of place in both, and sexual identity is so thoughtful and real. It never feels heavy-handed; it's just Ophelia's life. Her life, which ended up being messy and a little disastrous and also full of love. An excellent debut novel, and I look forward to reading what Racquel Marie has coming up next!