Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for giving me access to the advanced copy of this book to read.

My Rating: 3/5 stars

My Review:

I received a digital ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review and place on this blog tour – Thanks TBR and Beyond Tours

I have to start my review by saying this book had some really great rep. We have an asexual MC, a really adorable sapphic main couple, and a cinnamon roll non-binary side character, just to name a few. There were some really great scenes with Harper figuring out her sexual identity with the help of her friends, and it is something I would love to see more of in YA books. While all the characters were not extremely likeable the entire time, I think their identities came across nicely throughout the story and that many folks will be able to connect to that side of the story.

A lot happens in this less than three hundred-page book; it was honestly a bit overwhelming at times. It is a lot more than just a story about a fake dating profile. There are a lot of subplots that are tied up nicely by the end. I think my overwhelmedness with the story has more to do with the format of the ARC than with the story itself; I imagine reading it in print would be an entirely different situation.

That being said, I did want more from this book in terms of characterization. It started off really strong, with Harper’s pre-existing friend group (with the exception of Evelyn whom I disliked from the beginning) and then Margot’s introduction, but it swiftly went downhill from there. Between Harper’s inability to make new friends without abandoning her others, and then the exclusion by her friend group because she made new friends, it was hard to find any of them likeable for more than short periods at a time. I wish there had been more time spent on the resolve in the book; it ends very abruptly in that sense. More closure would have ended the book on a different note.

That being said, I did enjoy this book. Harper and Margot were adorable, and I rooted for them the entire time. And while I could have gone without all the friend drama, it was a high school set book, so it would have felt off without it. It was a really fun YA contemporary, with everything you’d expect from it and more. I will just sign off by saying, if you’re going to include a character from Canada, maybe specify where she’s from and not just say Canada and generalize the entire time. As a Canadian reader, I must say it’s quite a pet peeve.

Forward March releases March 22nd, 2022

I was in marching band in high school and I love LGBTQ+ books, so I was really excited for this one! I really liked the main characters, but there were certain things I hated about this book. The friends are TERRIBLE, the conservative parents are yikes, and the catfishing aspect was gross. I really loved the two main characters and Harper's brother, but so many unlikable characters in this one! I have mixed feelings about this story.

I thought Forward March was a really fun time. Even though I had a hard time reading and connecting with Harper's friends (I am a holding a grudge kind of girl through and through), I thought this book was so funny and cute and relatable. The Ace Rep was amazing and I really enjoyed the banter and dialogue between the characters. The romance was so sweet and wholesome that I felt a toothache coming on from all the sugar and I am NOT mad about it. I cannot wait to see what Skye Quinlan does next.

Content Warning: Forward March includes scenes of anxiety, panic attacks, asthma attacks, depression, mentions of self-harm, alcoholism, being outed, homophobia (from peers and parents), and toxic family relationships.

One of my single favorite things about this book was the representation included on-page. The protagonist discovers and explores her own identity as an asexual lesbian on-page, allowing readers to witness and relate to her process of self-discovery and finding labels that fit. There are not nearly enough stories about asexual characters available right now, so Forward March is a welcome addition to the cannon! Though I personally don’t have any experience being in a marching band (tragically cellos don’t really work for marching) I had a wonderful time reading about the character’s experiences while in a band environment!

My Recommendation- If you enjoy YA sports stories, but would rather read about the marching band than the football team, you should pick up a copy of Forward March! I would especially recommend this book to fans of She Drives Me Crazy and Like Other Girls!

I loved this. Harper's progression was so believable. Her discussion with Bellamy was a lovely dialogue of searching and support. The supporting characters were full and their actions made sense given their feelings, motivations, and circumstances. Just all around such a great book.

This book was utterly charming, and and excellent addition to the ever growing collection I have of coming-of-age queer stories that thankfully include ace and non-binary representation, which is always a plus from me!

The writing style was perfectly appropriate for the setting and age group this book centered on, albeit a little heavy on the swearing, which isn't particularly a bad thing. Quinlan's debut captures the high school experience very well in terms of tone and overall flow.

As far as plot goes, it left a bit to be desired from me. I was hopeful for this book, but I really wish there had been a lot more romance and exploration of Harper's queer identity and band antics, and a little less backstabbing and political scandal.

My main gripe - Harper's friends are awful. From the very start, they seem to be generally unlikable people, and as the story progresses and Harper experiences more personal downfalls, they all seem to blame her for her own misfortune and lack any empathy whatsoever, to the point where the reading experience while they were on the page was irritating at best and anger-inducing at worst.

I thought Margot and Harper's romantic storyline was cute, and Margot is definitely a standout character here. Her patience and understanding of Harper's situation is truly the highlight of the book.

Overall, Forward March was an enjoyable, quick, and delightfully queer read that may frustrate or overwhelm at times with the way emotion flows, but it's a story very worth telling and I know that many readers will find solace in Harper's identity.

As a past marching band member, this made my day! I loved seeing marching band nerdiness! This also had a great story and I loved it.

i haven’t read a book this awful in a long time. not a single character was likeable and the story felt as though it was written by an eight year old.

A big thank you to Netgalley and Page Street Publishing for giving me an ARC of "Forward March" by Skye Quinlan!

FORWARD MARCH by Skye Quinlan brings to mind what THE UNPOPULAR VOTE should have been, but ultimately failed to be. This narrative about a. closeted queer kid of a politician is both heartwarming in its' queer representation, as well as its' narrative outside of queerness in and of itself. My only real complaint is that it seemed to be lacking more substance than I would have hoped for.

I was sold by the description "lesbian marching band YA' and delightfully surprised by the complex story that unfolded in FORWARD MARCH. Harper as the asthmatic, anxious sax player who's been catfished-slash-outed (kind of? whatever the term is for when someone catfishes someone else by pretending to be you) and strikes up an unlikely friendship-slash-flirtation with the catfishee, setting off a chain of messy friendship drama and parental strife (Harper's homophobic mom is the dean of their elite boarding school, and her homophobic dad is running for President). Overall, I really liked the characters and particularly enjoyed Quinlan's ability to let teens be messy and inconsistent and self-serving and defensive and somehow still open-hearted. The stakes of the novel felt a bit unnecessarily heightened -- having the characters all be hyper-elite sons and daughters of DC royalty didn't add much to the plot, especially as the characters weren't really interested in politics themselves. I also felt that the subplot with Morgan's autistic sister was a bit overwrought -- Harper is an open-minded Gen Z teen who has absolutely no trouble with genderqueerness or polyamory or homosexuality or any other sort of non-normativity but treats meeting Issy as though she's being expected to defuse a bomb. Issy's a delightful character, and nothing about any of her description or interactions with others reads as offensively neurotypical, but I thought the hush-hush way Morgan discusses her sister & Harper's nervous preparation was odd in the context of the rest of the novel. Overall, though, these are blips in an otherwise lovely and thoughtful YA. The ace/questioning representation was great and develops well over the course of the novel!

Forward March by Skye Quinlan is one of my recent reads which has a great cast of characters. The diversity in this book is something that I hope we could see more. Also, I recommended this book if you are looking for a book with a wonderful queers representation.

⬦⬦⬦ 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎
+ Great cast of characters and wonderful LGBT+ representation. Not only queer characters, but this book also featured people of color too.
+ I adored Harper and Margot's relationship. Love watching how their relationship evolves.
+ This book did a great job highlighting the exploration of queer identities.

⬦⬦⬦ 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚒 𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚋𝚎 𝚍𝚒𝚏𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚝
- the writing has an on & off moment for me. For one part I became super excited to read the next pages, but later I was struggling and need to give an extra push to continue reading.
- I don't have a problem with forgive and forget trope, but in here I didn't adore the way it was executed.

The characters in this novel were well written, each with a very distinct personality. Harper, the main character, was easy to like and I was rooting for her the entire book. Other characters shocked me with their level of meanness, but it kept things realistic. High school is a time of self-discovery and it can feel isolating at times. It can be hard to understand what your friends are going through when you are having enough difficulty figuring out your own life. This was realistically portrayed with the changing relationship between Harper and Nadia as the story unfolds.

One of my favorite characters was the music teacher, Mrs. Devereaux. I wish there had been more interactions between Harper and her. I also wish there had been maybe one more chapter at the end of the book to help wrap up a few questions that I feel were left unanswered. I guess it's a good sign that I wished for the story to continue once it had ended.

I appreciated the range of gender and sexual orientations presented in the book. They were explained in a way that felt natural to the story, without being too explicit. I also loved the marching band aspect of the story. As a proud high school band parent, I can relate to the excitement of the season.

This book would be good for students in high school. Some more mature middle school students may be able to handle it as well although, older students would be better able to appreciate the depiction of the stresses of high school.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #PageStreetPublishing for an ARC of #ForwardMarch by #SkyeQuinlan in exchange for an honest review. The views expressed above are completely my own.

Happy pub day to Forward March! This is one of my favorite books of the year, so far, so I'm very excited for others to get to read it!

For being such a short book (under 300 pages!), the characters in FM managed to wriggle their way into my heart astoundingly quickly. Harper and Margot managed to grab ahold of my attention and not let go until the very last page.

I also really enjoyed the way politics were brought into the story! While I'd hesitate to recommend to fans of Red, White & Royal Blue - seeing as I haven't read that one - it seems like it might be a comparable title. Government in YA is always such an exciting thing to read, and this was no exception! I really enjoyed Harper's struggle between loyalty to her father and her identity.

Which sort of leads into my next point - how diverse this book was! Specifically, the fact that our protagonist was a lesbian asexual, which was interesting to see since I'm not sure I can remember another YA novel whose protagonist used both those labels. A lot of Harper's friends were also queer and/or POC which, again, is great to see so much representation.

Without giving any spoilers, I will say that Christian was far and away my favorite character (although he only comes into play in the end), and I absolutely loved seeing his interactions with the people he was close to.

Overall, I highly recommend this to band geeks, queer kids, and anyone looking for a feel-good story!

I received an advance copy from NetGalley and Page Street Publishing, all opinions are my own.

This book was such a big surprise and overall just a delight to read! It made me laugh and grin and SOB because it hit so close to home, but at the end, I left this book feeling so HAPPY!

With the sweetest sapphic romance and a main character who is figuring herself and her sexuality out in the middle of what is definitely a complicated family dynamic, this book found its way to my heart. The stakes in this book were so clear and terrifying, but the cute romance and some supportive friends made this book hopeful. I really liked these characters and I want MORE!

The part that definitely touched me the most is the brother and sister dynamic, though. As a little sister whose brothers are everything to her, their relationship was just beautiful and made me sob. They were the best and I adore it.

The subtle neurodivergent representation also just warmed my heart because, as an autistic person, it was so relatable! Only love for that!

I am already looking forward to future books by this author. This one was just so lovely, and I'm already frustrated at the lack of attention it's getting right now. I will definitely be recommending this to everyone in hopes of it getting more hype!

this book was a fun read that is perfect for fans of friendship, marching band, & doctor who. You will definitely want this book on your shelf this spring.

TL;DR
I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH!!!!!!
first there were happy tears, then sad tears, and then more happy tears
perfectly queer, delightfully nerdy, and everything I’ve ever wanted in a book
VERDICT: read this as soon as you possibly can!

What I Loved
um, I freaking LOVE THIS ENTIRE BOOK WITH ALL OF MY HEART AND SOUL!!! I’m literally trying to figure out whether I should lead with the ace rep or the marching band and I don’t think I’ll be able to decide so let’s talk about both of them! the mc, Harper, is a saxophonist in her marching band, and as she learns the terms for through the course of this book, she is also asexual! Personally, I think she is probably demi-romantic as well. I LOVE seeing ace characters in books, and I’m so happy that teens now can just… read about it? and know? like, I’m part of the ‘three way calls and aim’ generation and I did not know the word asexual existed (outside of like, worms) until I was halfway through college. I’m pretty sure I had more I wanted to say here, but it’s 10:29 at night and I can’t remember what it was. Oops.

What I Didn’t
look, I love standalones because you get closure at the end, but I NEED MORE. MORE HARPER, MORE MARGOT, MORE SARAH, MORE EVERYONE (except the one character I hate, but luckily I don’t think we need to see anymore of them) PLEASE AND THANK YOU!!!!

Favorite Character?
oooh, this is a hard one! Harper is definitely my number one favorite, but someone else comes in at a close second.

Will I Re-Read It?
YES DEFINITELY I ALREADY CAN’T WAIT!!!

Three Words To Describe The Book
QUEER MARCHING BAND CATFISHING

and yes, those are three of my ‘gimme words‘, but I didn’t really ever expect to see all three of them used to describe just one book 😂

*my ‘gimme words’ are words that are mentioned in the synopsis and/or reviews of things that make me go ‘yes give that to me right now please!!!‘

Goodreads Review
do you like stories about queer nerds? do fun arguments about Doctor Who and Criminal Minds sound like a good way to flirt? do you have a mighty need for more books about marching band or asexual characters?

then do I have the book for you!

This Reminds Me Of:
Famous in a Small Town by Emma Mills
Full Flight by Ashley Schumacher
The One True Me and You by Remi K. England
The [Un]Popular Vote by Jasper Sanchez

I love this book so much! Thank you NetGalley, Page Street YA, and Skye Quinlan for letting me read an early copy!!!

3 stars

Harper, the m.c. of this contemporary YA novel, is living her best band life in boarding school where her mom is the Dean, all her friends are the actual worst, and she's questioning where in the spectrum of queerness she might land. Also, she has a mysterious estranged brother, and her extremely conservative dad is a presidential candidate. Did I mention the fake Tinder profile that kicks off Harper's connection to Margot in the beginning? My head is spinning while I recap, which is also giving me better insight into my reading experience...

In theory, this is a five-star book for me, and I couldn't wait to read this, but my experience was just not positive. Harper was so boring for me, but she is also victimized by nearly everyone she encounters, and this is exhausting. She is deeply unrelatable: wildly privileged in many ways that matter. I had a hard time caring about her (or frankly most of these characters) because of their various advantages and points of marked unrelatability. For a novel centering on queer characters, this felt remarkably exclusive the whole way through.

If Harper's reaction to the various things that happen to her is any indication, she'll continue to be surrounded by bad people doing bad things for the long haul, and that's too much for even a fictional teen to endure in my opinion. I struggled with this messaging a lot.

I read a lot of YA, and one of my favorite parts of it is the willingness of most authors to jump into some level of grittiness, even with their very young protagonists. Still, there can be hopeful messages. For me, there were too many odd details and coincidences, and I couldn't find enough substance to grasp. I wanted to love this and thought I would, but I just couldn't get there. That noted, I'll definitely be interested to try a future effort from this author in hopes that simplifying the circumstances and creating a more relatable character will be part of the next process.

This is Skye’s debut novel and if her future books are anything like this then I will definitely be reading them. I loved Skye’s writing style. I was instantly hooked and wanted to keep reading to see what was going to happen. I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to read this in one day. I really hope that Skye will continue with another book because after I finished it I couldn’t stop thinking about Harper, Margot ( I loved how her dad is a Canadian Ambassador), and pretty much everyone else in the book.

Our main character is Harper and she just wants to make it through the year with no glitches because all eyes are on her because her mom is the strict school dean and her father is running in the presidential election. Then if that is not enough she discovers someone has made a fake dating profile using her photo.

This catfish is sending messages to a fellow bandmate Margot. She confronts Harper about this. Harper needs to keep this quiet while she figures out who did this and why because if this out gets it’s not going to look good. There is too much on the line for her. She just wants to blend in and not draw attention to herself. Will they be able to figure out who is doing this and why?

I loved reading how Harper and Margot went from basically being bandmates to friendship to possibly more. This was a slow burn which I was all for. Margot turned out to be the right person for Harper especially when her so-called friends started to turn their backs on Harper.

Forward March is a YA book that truly focuses on contemporary issues many young adults (and younger) and that is 'identity'. I can guarantee that whilst this is fictional, readers will no doubt relate to situations and characters as it's so well written that you can imagine yourself attending school with them.

There is representation of many gender and sexual identities such as asexual, lesbian, gay, pansexual, poly, and (cheers because it's rare to see my own identity on the page) nonbinary characters. Situations are often ones you can relate to whether it's your identity being written about or incidences that you can see come to life - because Skye Quinlan really brings both the world and characters of Forward March to life and the reader can easily immerse themselves alongside Harper McKinley and her friends, frenemies, and bandmates as her life takes make twists and turns.

I need to add that whilst there is a lot of positivity in Forward March, there is also the dark reality of living openly as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and that is homophobia and transphobia though it's primarily the former and whilst a book should be well-rounded in the realities of life? I am aware that reading about homophobia for anyone who has been on the receiving it can be extremely upsetting and potentially triggering for real-life memories.

If you're in need of a book that you can relate to where representation truly is well-done? Forward March is a book for you and you're going to love it. I couldn't relate to the marching band elements as it's something that isn't in UK schools so the scenes that do focus on that went a little over my head though I could visualise it from the many chic-flics I've loved over the years.

I also have to say, I loved the other realities of Harper's characterization is she's asthmatic and has allergies which again? Isn't something that occurs too often in books and yet, is a reality for many many people going through their day to day lives.