Quinlan perfectly captured first love, the pressures of high school and all the emotions that go along with the experience with beautiful words that show the true heart of her characters and I could not have loved it more & I played the flute for less than a year back in high school and had ALL the nostalgia from the Friday Night feels in this one🤣

With a unique political family dynamic that I hadn’t expected but worked so well for this story, anyone who’s ever been caught up in family expectations and wants to break free of those pressures should read this title. Written for the band geeks and self-proclaimed nerds who miss the music and community feeling of marching as one, this book’s for you! Similar to the setting of Ashley Schumacher’s Full Flight with the added element of the young adult queer love story you didn’t know you needed, FORWARD MARCH will blow you away.

“Her eyes are the prettiest shade of brown, and I feel like a book she’s trying her hardest to decipher, to peel apart the pages and read between the lines like no one else ever has.”

Are you someone who falls for lines of a book and just wants to go back and read them over and over? This was my favorite sentence and just 😍 Read this one and remember what it’s like to feel that pressure and expectation of everything being so BIG and important, as these incredible characters find out just who exactly they are as they get ready to graduate and go out into the real world.

Thank you to TBR and Beyond Tours, the author, and Page Street Publishing for having me on the book tour, check out my post from 3/9!

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc and arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Forward March

Author: Skye Quinlan

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 4.5/5

Diversity: Indonesian character, Black character, Vegetarian character, Anxiety character, Autistic character, Asthma MC and side character. Because a good amount of the book involves the MC figuring out their identity, I’m just going to list out all of the 2SLGBT+ identities that I found while reading the book: asexual, bisexual, non-binary, lesbian, f/f romance, gay, pansexual, queer, questioning, m/m romance

Recommended For...: young adult readers, contemporary, romance, marching band, 2SLGBT+

Publication Date: March 22, 2022

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Age Relevance: 14+ (anxiety, depression, asthma attacks, self-harm, underage alcohol consumption, alcoholism, being outted, sexual content, romance, drugs, language, religion, racism, politics, panic attack, homophobia, transphobia)

Explanation of Above: The book shows episodes of anxiety, depression, and panic attacks, as well as a couple of asthma attacks. Self-harm is mentioned, never shown. There is a scene where underage alcohol consumption is shown, but it’s also mentioned occasionally throughout the book. Alcoholism is also mentioned by an adult character and drugs are mentioned once in the book in a joke reference. There is some sexual content mentioned such as sex and sexting, but nothing is ever shown. There’s not even a fade-to-black sex scene in the book, it’s all just mentions of what other characters have done. There is romance in the book, but its hand holding, hugs, and kisses at most. The book has cursing in it. There is religion (Christian) mentioned occasionally in the book. Politics are mentioned a lot in the book and it’s a main focus of the MC’s father and it has some play into the actions of all of the characters. There’s also some small bits of racism in the book, but a lot of homophobia and transphobia in the book, as well as a scene of being outted.

Publisher: Page Street Kids

Pages: 275

Synopsis: Harper “Band Geek” McKinley just wants to make it through her senior year of marching band—and her Republican father’s presidential campaign. That was a tall order to start, but everything was going well enough until someone made a fake gay dating profile posing as Harper. The real Harper can’t afford for anyone to find out about the Tinder profile for three very important reasons:

1. Her mom is the school dean and dating profiles for students are strictly forbidden.
2. Harper doesn't even know if she likes anyone like that—let alone if she likes other girls.
3. If this secret gets out, her father could lose the election, one she's not sure she even wants him to win.

But upon meeting Margot Blanchard, the drumline leader who swiped right, Harper thinks it might be worth the trouble to let Margot get to know the real her.

With her dad’s campaign on the line, Harper’s relationship with her family at stake, and no idea who made that fake dating profile, Harper has to decide what’s more important to her: living her truth or becoming the First Daughter of America.

Review: Overall, I really enjoyed this book! I loved the trigger warnings in the front of the book and I highly appreciated it. The book was a sweet queer romance between boarding school marching band students at a conservative high school with a homophobic dean and it starts with stolen ID! It was a fun read, full of small Doctor Who and Criminal Minds fandom moment. I loved the characters and they were fairly complex for a contemporary romance! The world building was well done as well and the book is well paced. I also loved seeing the MC’s self discovery and I feel a lot of teens and adults would also find this book informative in helping them identify who they really are, especially with all the helpful links in the front of the book! I highly enjoyed it for the most part!

However, I did have issues with the book. While I liked seeing all of the struggles the teen characters had against the archaic notions the Republican and conservative adults, I felt it was weird the dean, who is our MC’s mother, didn’t have allergen friendly foods considering the MC has an allergy to seafood but is still served it for lunch. The book also didn’t resolve some of the homophobia shown in the book, which I would have liked to see but I know this is more realistic to not be shown. The book also had a few other plot points that weren’t resolved, like some of the racist comments said or racist platforms held by some politicians (build a wall) and the issue with our MC feeling overburdened by her parent’s choices for her and the MC’s mother’s rude and infantilizing comments. I felt a bit empty with the epilogue and I would have also liked to see more of a turning point from the MC’s father’s platform (more than just what he did) but I also feel conflicted because, again, this is probably more realistic. Sometimes your family will never accept you for who you really are and sometimes your family will never be whole again because of their own hateful and wrong beliefs. So, while I didn’t like it for Harper I do appreciate how real it is.

Verdict: It was raw and truthful and I feel things. Highly recommend!

Ok friends, put this one on your radar. Skye Quinlan's debut novel, Forward March, is that YA, finding yourself, take you back to your high school marching band days, story you didn’t know you needed. It publishes on March 22nd!

Ok, time for my thoughts and I have a lot. One, I adored Skye Quinlan's writing style. This was a quick read, but I felt like I was there, which is something you don’t always find in YA contemporary novels. I was taken straight back to my high school marching band days ( 🏳️‍🌈 Color Guard here. I also played in the orchestra as well). It was SO fun being taken back to those Friday Night football games and half-time performances. But most importantly, reading about Harper’s story and struggles really touched me. I love learning about other people’s lives and experiences through books. Reading about her journey of discovering who she is really spoke to me on a deep level. The representation in this book is phenomenal!! Not only from a LQBTQ+ perspective but there are also POC, on the spectrum, anxiety, asthma, allergies, and so much more. As a lifelong suffer of life altering anxiety myself, I saw myself in Harper’s character and it was so nice to be able to connect with those feelings on the pages of a book. Lastly, I love when a book has characters that use the they/them pronouns. It’s not something I see enough of in the books I read.

This was a fast read that I really enjoyed! It had characters that I fell in love with, a slow burn romance, just enough drama, and was emotional in a way that I just kept wanting more.

I loved the MC. She was a relatable high school student dealing with teenage pressures of finding herself, whether that meant following her passion for music, exploring what it means to be ACE, or falling for a girl in band while juggling her conservative parents & their close-minded views on the queer community.

There was a lot of different people within the queer community that were represented in this book. I liked it because I will admit that I’m not super familiar with all of them. There were gay, ACE, and non-binary characters that they author did a really great job of allowing the reader to understand their perspectives. For the most part, they were well thought out & explained well for the reader.

I think those who say they don’t like drama are fibbing a little. They may not like causing/creating drama, but I think everyone (to some extent) enjoys hearing or reading about drama. And high school drama is the best kind. While I rolled my eyes at some of the drama, a lot of the issues that are dealt with in the book are important to read about. While there was a few situations that were problematic, overall I enjoyed the storyline.

Harper finds herself in this book. Who she is internally, what she loves to do, and how she loves others. She also has empathy for those who have wronged her. She didn’t have to forgive her friends, but she did because that’s just who she is. Her music is what allows her to feel like she belongs and is also part of her self-expression.

It's not happily ever after, but more like happily right now, and I’ll take it! I know that this isn’t the case for all teens that have come out (or outed by others) but Harper seems to really be on a better path, for her self-worth & her future path that she is now following.

Rainbows and Sunshine
March 8, 2022
I loved Forward March, a sapphic YA contemporary with an ace lesbian main character! Margot and Harper are really cute and I enjoyed seeing their relationship progress from friends to more.

I didn't really like Harper's friends, they annoyed me a lot but Margot's were amazing! Sarah was such a great friend and I love her so much. It was great see Margot and Sarah support Harper, as most of her friends and her parents didnt.

It also has great non binary and bisexual representation. I loved the band and music aspect and it was so much fun. Also really loved Christian and Ben, though they only appeared for a short time. Overall I really enjoyed this novel.

*ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley and TBR Books and Beyond in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

Perfect for fans of:

- Mistaken identity trope
- Authentic asexuality rep
- Marching band shenanigans
- Messy friendships and breakups
- Campfires and cute smores moments

Have you ever really enjoyed a book while simultaneously wanting to strangle almost every single secondary character in it? Well, have I got the book for you, buddy.

Forward March follows Harper McKinley, a certified band geek in her senior year. With a Republican father who’s running a presidential campaign and her mother hovering over her as the dean of her school, Harper just wants to make it through the year unscathed. But when someone makes a fake gay dating profile posing as her, things start to fall apart. Harper can’t afford for her parents—or anyone else—to find out for multiple reasons: her parents’ approval, not to mention the news would jeopardise her father’s campaign and most importantly, Harper doesn’t know if she even likes anyone like that. But upon meeting Margot Blanchard, the girl who swiped right on Harper’s fake dating profile, Harper thinks it might be worth to find out what she feels. With her dad’s campaign on her line, though, Harper will have to ask herself what’s more important: finding her true self or becoming the First Daughter of America.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m really torn on how I feel about this book. Did it accomplish what it set out to do? Absolutely. Did I have a great time reading it? Undoubtedly. Would I still sacrifice most of the characters to a higher power? Pretty likely.

What this book got almost infuriatingly right is how messy friendships can be when you’re a teen (and let’s be real, later on in life). Quinlan offers up flawed characters that get things right only to get them wrong in the next second and explores how much jealousy and envy can shape a friendship. At times, I had to put down the book because I was just so angry at Harper’s friends and the way they treated her. Harper doesn’t have an easy life—as the daughter of the school’s dean and her father who’s in politics, she’s kept on a pretty tight leash and can’t really participate in a lot of activities that might get back to her parents, not to mention that they themselves seem to have an agenda for how Harper should portray the perfect daughter of a political figure. I really loved how we got glimpses of her relationship with both her parents and how one influenced the other, even though it also really showed how isolated Harper is. To be clear, while these passages invoked a lot of heavy emotions in me, I can only commend Quinlan’s writing ability—to make you feel something so viscerally and get you to be in a protagonist’s corner 100% right from the get go? That’s pure talent.

The support Harper needs from her friends after someone has created a fake profile of her on a dating app is also often overshadowed by petty jealousy, shame-blaming and much else and it’s not an easy experience reading about the way she is treated horribly by these people she considers her friends. Again, Quinlan does an amazing job at showcasing how teens can cut out someone else completely just because they’re told to by the “alpha of the group” but this definitely isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s messy and heartbreaking and while I wouldn’t be as forgiving as Harper is, it’s pretty cathartic following her find her real friends along the way.

My favourite part by far—and one that I can already see people cheering on—is the asexual representation in Forward March. Harper and Margot have undeniable chemistry, yet Harper questions whether she feels romantic or sexual attraction for anyone at all. I loved how Harper got to explore her feelings and experiment with what she’s comfortable with and most of all, I loved how open the conversation around asexuality was. Oftentimes, there’s this tunnel vision of asexuality where people believe that it’s just one thing and it really isn’t. Harper reaches out to one of her friends, who’s nonbinary, and they help her find her footing when it comes to perhaps being on the ace spectrum. It’s a conversation that felt so realistic and well thought-out because it truly showcased that most of us learn about gender and sexuality through our friends or the internet (because it’s still not really talked about in schools) and I loved how, even when other things like drama got in the way, Harper still had people who helped her understand herself better.

The development of Harper and Margot’s relationship is also so cute. After a very rocky start (I mean, Margot literally thought she was flirting with Harper for months only to learn that it wasn’t her), the two have some super sweet moments and their friendship solidifies into something more in a well-paced arc. It’s also a very nice reprieve to see Harper get the support and encouragement she needs and sorely lacks from others in her life. You could really tell how much Margot cares for Harper and I enjoyed their heart-to-hearts a lot.

There’s also something to be said about storytelling in Forward March. Though at first I was a bit confused about different strands of the narrative, they all interweaved seamlessly and elevated other parts and messages of the story which I quite enjoyed. There’s also a storyline involving Harper’s brother (which I won’t get into detail because spoilers) that warmed my heart. I honestly love sibling relationships like these and Harper’s brother might just be one of my favourite characters overall—can you say wholesome AF?

Overall, this is a well-done debut. Quinlan has a way with words and definitely gets the tone of today’s teenagers right, which makes me excited for what’s up her sleeve in the future.

Encapsulating the messy reality of friendships, Forward March is a fun and introspective YA debut. With a cute love story that’s dedicated to all the proud “band geeks” out there, authentic asexuality representation and a captivating catfish storyline, this one’s not to be missed this spring!

I really liked this one. Band geeks navigating friendships, sexuality and gender identity, with disability, non-binary and asexual representation all present and normalized. The story wrapped up a bit abruptly after slowing down a bit in the middle, but YA readers are really going to enjoy this one and we are purchasing it for our library collection.

Also the cover is perfection. Well done!!

I was so excited for this book. While I admittedly didn’t like it as much as I hoped I would, I think it is a great addition to the YA world. I would’ve loved it when I was a teenager and think it will be great for so many current teens. The story was interesting and I loved the characters. The description of Harper’s relationship to her a sexuality and how it manifested in her relationship was excellent and represented a specific experience that is very underrepresented currently. I related very much to this experience and it was healing to see it reflected in a book. I also loved the marching band element. I think we are seeing a rise in diversity in YA books and the experiences they depict and this makes me so happy. A wider range of experiences are being explored through different identities, interests, and backdrops. As a color guard geek, I will say that while many of us our catty, not all of us are and I look forward to a queer color guard main character someday! I think many teenagers will see themselves reflected in this book and that is so important. They will know their experiences are valid and gain tools to understand and express themselves and their emotions.

This novel beautifully captures the magic of YA contemporaries! The writing style is lovely and easy to understand, there's a focus on the main character's exploration of identity and there are many other characters and situations readers will be able to relate to.

There's asexual, lesbian, gay, bi, pansexual, poly and non-binary representation. I specifically loved one scene, in which Bellamy, a non-binary character, helps Harper make sense of her new feelings towards a girl. It's genuinely awesome to have queer people supporting other queer people!

I do have to mention though that there's a huge focus on homophobia, which is not inherently bad of course, but could be triggering. Harper's parents repeatedly show homophobic behaviour towards her and others and put their daughter under a lot of pressure.

Harper also has asthma and is allergic to seafood. There aren't really a lot of books that focus on characters with allergies and I think the descriptions in the book are super helpful to raise more awareness (if you're reading this right now and don't know what to do if someone has an allergic reaction - you should look it up!).

If you're a fan of marching bands, sapphic romances and characters exploring their queer idenities - you should read this book once it comes out on March 22.


content warnings (as included in the book): anxiety, depression, mentions of self-harm, alcoholism, being outed

➡️ e-ARC provided by Netgalley and Pagestreetya

Harper McKinley is a band geek and damned proud of it. She’s one of the best (and most dedicated) members of her private boarding school’s band, and with her senior year in full swing, nothing is going to stop her from having a great time. Except her conservation Republican dad is putting his hat in the ring to run for President. And her mom is the principal of her school. And her best friend is being a little weird. And there’s this Tinder profile of her someone used to catfish another band member. And…Harper might have feelings for her.

How do you come out to your homophobic mother when you don’t even know what “out” really means for you, just that you like Margot Blanchard?

This was such a heartwarming and heartbreaking (I feel like I say that in most of my reviews) reads.

NGL, I was hesitant to pick this one up after I realized it was not by Kelly Quindlen (somehow, I got the two authors confused—I blame the covers, kinda similar plots and the Qs), and also when I realized that it had a Republican president dad plotline from an author I did not know.

Normal parents chaperone school events, hug their kids because they love them, not for personal gain, and because they support their daughters and want to be there and tell them how pretty they look at homecoming. And then a camera snaps and flashes, and I’m reminded that we aren’t normal, that Dad has never chaperoned a school event, or even hugged me in public for anything except a publicity stunt.

ANYWHO, I am pleased to report that this was a really, really strong debut!

Harper is a fantastic main character. Messy. Naive. Filled with anxiety about the world and her parents and her place in it, where she is a child who doesn’t have the views of her parents and yet is a pawn in their political games. And starting to really question her own sexuality after spending her entire life not really paying much attention to it. A lot of shit happens to her, and while Harper doesn’t handle everything perfectly, she handles it realistically, and that it what I really loved, even though the pain of her panic attacks had me sobbing in sympathy.

While there is a romance here, to me, it took second place to everything else going on.

Harper has a weird falling out with her friends, particularly her best friend and roommate, after starting to spend time with the girl her fake profile matched with (the Tinder aspect gets sidelined in favor of the political aspect)—and then there is her father’s political career as the Senator turned Presidential Candidate, and while this was a lot of stuff going on and at times it felt super heaped on for drama’s sake, it worked? Because heaping on to everything else and explaining a lot of Harper’s reactions was her determination to be the Perfect Daughter (while also remaining in the spotlight because of her anxiety) after her parents kicked her brother out of their lives and shipped him off to military school. I mean, what a fucking sword hanging over your head, to think that any misstep will have your parents sending you away in shame and never speaking to you—to military school, no less. It’s a lot.

I also really liked the support network she grew. The adult teachers who cared about her and wanted her to succeed in what she wanted, not what her parents wanted. The friends Harper made who were truly supportive, as she learned what positive support and friendship looked like.

Ace rep! Lesbian rep! Bi rep! Nonbinary rep! POC rep! Gay men! Questioning rep! Fuck the Republicans/homophobes/shitty parents rep! Two fishies!

…yes, actual fishies that’s not code for anything the book has literally two goldfish.

It’s not a book for everyone, but it resonated with me as someone who has had strained relationships with her parents, and also a falling out with friends for ~reasons~ that involved lying.

Trigger Warnings: public outing, panic attack/anxiety, homophobic parents, homophobia, catfishing of a minor, depression, self-harm (off-page), addiction (off page), estranged parents/sibling

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

Forward March, by Skye Quinlan, follows Harper McKinley, the daughter of the principle of her boarding school and a Republican senator who is running for president. When Margot Blanchard, another girl in band, tells her at the start of the school year that somebody has been impersonating Harper on Tinder and that Margot had been sexting with her, Harper is forced to face the question of who, if anybody, she's attracted to. As the two grow closer, and Harper's friends turn on her, she finds herself torn between her parents' agendas for her and her own.

I liked Harper as a character, but she was kind of bland. She's very passionate about band, which I appreciated; she talks a lot about how it's the only thing that she's ever chosen for herself, which helps to tie in that part of the narrative with the wider political and sexuality narratives. I will say that she surprised me in the ways that she is willing to stand up for herself, showing more backbone than she appears to have at first glance.

One thing that I did really enjoy was the asexuality rep, particularly since I didn't know about it going in. As a demisexual person, I found Harper's struggle with that aspect of her identity to be very relatable and well-written. It's been a year or two since I've red such good ace representation. While the wlw rep was also good, the ace rep was what really stood out to me about the book, and is definitely its saving grace.

All of the secondary characters are really only okay, Margot, the love interest, did absolutely nothing for me other than being significantly better than all of Harper's friends, who were complete jerks. Their romance was somewhat cute, but nothing extraordinary, and I really didn't find myself caring much one way or the other whether they got together. I did really appreciate her for how kind and considerate and supportive she always is with Harper, which is especially important in comparison with every other character's treatment of the protagonist.

Harper's friends are all horrible. Nadia, her best friend and roommate since they were 7 (who sends their kids to boarding school at 7?), was particularly bad, but her other friends were awful as well. One thing that I didn't understand was the fact that one of Harper's friends, Evelyn, is the daughter of another presidential candidate who is openly rude to Harper about her dad's campaign, and yet they still seem to be at least relatively close. It felt very odd and contrived.

Honestly, the contrived aspect of that plot point really extends to the entire book. It's unclear why everything has to be so dramatic; while Harper's parents are honestly the most interesting characters in the book, it just feels like a bit much that one of them controls Harper's school and the other is running for president, which influences her life in a number of other ways. The entire presidential campaign part felt a little odd to me, and, while key to the plot, felt strangely in the background for the first half of the book, which feels particularly odd because that seems like it ought to have an impact on almost every aspect of Harper's life. Regardless, while Harper's parents aren't lovable characters by any means, they do feel human, and I enjoyed their scenes more than almost any of the other characters.

The worst thing about the book for me was the ending; without spoiling anything, it definitely has too much of a tone of "you have to forgive people who have hurt you no matter what, or else you're a bad person," which just... isn't a good message, and really rubbed me the wrong way, particularly with the sorts of topics that are depicted in the book.

Overall, I did enjoy Forward March, particularly the ace rep. If you're just looking for a cute romance or good queer representation, and don't mind a couple of characters who will anger you or a somewhat-contrived plot, then you should definitely give it a go. I will say that one should look at the trigger warnings before starting, because it does deal with a few topics that I wouldn't have expected it to that could be an issue for some readers. Overall, I'm giving this book 3/5 stars.

This was a delightfully fun queer YA romance that also managed to pack a punch at times. I read this easily in one sitting.

Harper is a senior in marching band at the boarding school where her mom is dean. With her dad in politics and getting ready to run for president, she's used to keeping a low profile. When someone sets up a fake Tinder account and matches with drummer Margot while pretending to be her, Harper is horrified. But... then Harper and Margot end up beginning a friendship that turns into something more.

First, the queer representation in this book made my heart sing! Ace, non-binary, and folks all over the spectrum. In my opinion, it was done well. Harper's coming to terms with her identity is a key part of the plot, but there was also a lot of casual representation of people already comfortable with their identities. There's angst, but there's also queer joy, too.

Harper and Margot's relationship was really sweet and developed in a natural way. Margot was definitely my favorite side character - I absolutely wanted to whack all of Harper's friends and family on the head at several points throughout the book. I wasn't in marching band, but I loved reading about it and thought it added a great element to the story. The politics element was interesting, but wasn't expanded on too much, other than the added scrutiny and publicity that Harper has to deal with.

As other reviews have mentioned, there were a few aspects about the ending that bothered me, although I can also understand it. (But I really need Harper to graduate, get the hell away, and find some new friends and maybe a nice chosen family in college instead.) Overall, this was really fun to read, a solid debut, and I'll check out anything else this author writes!

Thank you to NetGalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

DNF this book at 43%.

Safe to say, unfortunately, I’m never going to want to finish this.

And actually, if it wasn't for my weird sense of commitment to reading NG books fully before offering the review I'd have walked away at 20% in. As it happens, the book archives today and I can’t be bothered.

When I saw this on NetGalley I was tumbling over myself trying to get it so I could live out my queer band American high school fantasy 💅

I have to cut it a bit of slack because I know nothing of being in Band, or American high schools in general really, so a lot of the jokes and cleverness may have gone over my head.

It's definitely a book that is solidly YA. I love YA, but actually I probably would have enjoyed this more if I was still around school age—it felt a little juvenile.

I did however really like the exploration of sexuality and the asexual spectrum, nice rep.

However, is the plot wafer thin? Yes. But does it still somehow manage to be needlessly convoluted? Also yes.

The fact that she's the Dean's daughter AND the potential Presidents daughter just kind of felt like this book was doing the most to make the storyline as dramatic as possible. The President bit just... never quite fit.

Some bits were also a little repetitive. I definitely think it could have been shorter, maybe a novella and it would have been fine? Maybe then I would have finished the thing.

I’m not going to give it a star rating on goodreads because I don’t want to judge it too harshly when I think this book just… wasn’t meant for readers like me.

I did, however, learn a shit ton about Band.

When classmate Margot approaches Harper about a skipped hook-up, Harper discovers that someone has created a false dating profile with her name and details and has been using it to catfish Margot. As Harper and Margot get to know each other, they find out that they actually have a lot in common and Harper is left wondering where she identifies along a spectrum of orientation. As Harper and Margot grow closer, outside forces (parents, friends and a political campaign) threaten to disrupt this budding relationship.

First - Harper and Margot are wonderfully realized characters who are vibrant and genuine. The part that was difficult for me was that Harper didn't much support from her friends (to use the term loosely) or her family - her friends should be ashamed of their behavior and her parents need to stop being so selfish and look at Harper as a person not a political pawn. The good news is that Margot is a balancing factor in the novel - simultaneously supportive and encouraging of Harper's choices.

This was simply a well-written teen romance.

This was a great read! This book is about Harper who is a band geek and someone makes a fake Tinder account of her which could ruin her life. The author has amazing writing in this book and she features an asexual main character which I don't think I have read before in a book other then the character being a side character. The plot was very well done with the perfect amounts of conflicts being thrown into the story as there the MC is dating in secret with there being political scandals and drama. I do have to say that the pacing was a little slow for my liking but the story was still great. Overall the storyline was amazingly love and I enjoyed all the representations in this book.

The main character is Harper and I enjoyed her character. I feel as though so many readers can relate to her in some way because I felt connected to her. I enjoyed her character development in the book and how the side character helped her improve it. Our main side character is Margot who is more out there in the world ready to have fun. There are many other side characters in the book and I enjoyed how there was a diversity and representation of characters involved though I loathed Harper's best friends. The romance trope in this book is fake dating which is one of my favorite tropes just because you can see the love development but in this read I kind of felt that the romance was forced a little. It was sweet but I couldn't feel the slow burn feel to it.

The ending was well done with a happily ever after. Even though this book mentioned politics, I enjoyed how it wasn't heavily in the book where it just took over. Usually I run away from it but it was great in this book. This book was very well done but there are some things that were iffy about it. I totally recommend reading this book if you are fans of Love & Other Disasters and Red, White and Royal Blue.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC!
I loved this book so much! The characters were great and my favorite is definitely Margot.
<spoiler> I think she shouldn’t have forgiven them that easily and Bell and Nadia weren’t good friends to begin with because why would they keep hanging out with Evelyn despite her literally making fun of Harper any chance she got. </spoiler>

Full disclosure here: I am a 31-year-old woman, and not in the target audience for this book. I often read YA literature to preview it before putting it in my classroom and recommending it to my students, who are mostly 16 to 18. Sometimes, though, I'll read a YA book for purely selfish reasons, and this was one of those times. When Forward March became available as an advanced reader's copy (ARC) though NetGalley, I pounced on that request button and I actually did a happy dance when I was approved to read it before publication.

I devoured this book. I didn't want to put it down. I didn't know much about it before beginning, except that it was at least partially centered around a marching band. (I confess to not reading the synopsis at all before requesting the ARC of this book. I am a terrible person. I know.)

I was delighted to find a teenage girl that wasn't sex obsessed when it came to romance. In fact, it made Harper a very refreshing character. I immediately became enamored with her as our lead character and was excited to fall into her story.

It all starts when someone impersonates Harper on Tinder, a (mostly) hook-up oriented app. They send some obscene and risqué messages to Margot, one of Harper's bandmates. When Margot confronts Harper about the messages, the two begin a tenuous friendship as they ponder over who would do such a thing. Harper is terrified that it might have something to do with her Republican father's fledgling presidential campaign. Harper has it rough enough as the daughter of her boarding school's no nonsense Dean. Now that her father is running for president with a platform she abhors, the pressure is really on. If anyone were to find out about that fake Tinder profile, Harper would really be in some trouble. And so would Margot. There's got to be a rule against racy social media messages on campus, right?

Friendship drama dominates the first half of this book and family drama dominates the second. All throughout Harper is surrounded by a delightfully queer cast of characters (because marching band is kind of a magnet for any kind of people who don't quite belong or fit the social standard of the day). Harper feels like a bit of a late bloomer as she navigates budding romance and finding her own identity both inside and outside of the expectations upon her, but that was just another thing I found refreshing about her. Harper is young without being annoyingly or unbelievably naïve.

I loved this story all the way up to the end. Sure, the presidential campaign (including a visit to the White House) was underwritten, and there were a couple of pacing issues, but I didn't care. As an adult reader, I recognize that the campaign is not the focus of the story and that most teenagers wouldn't care about it. The author chose correctly to devote detail and time to other matters. What really bothered me was where the author pigeon-holed Harper into a particular type of forgiveness after some SERIOUS betrayals. Forgiveness does not have to mean everything goes back to normal. No one else "wins" if you move on from relationships after trust is broken. Implying that Harper had to forgive and essentially forget at the end of the novel in order to be the bigger person, feels disingenuous and a bit like victim-blaming. The ending lowered my rating from a four star to a three star experience. It was completely mishandled in other ways as well, but I won't spoil for you. Beyond what I've said, the issues I had with the ending may or may not bother you, depending on personal experience.

It's still worth the read, especially if you needed this book as a high school student. I know if I had been able to read this when I was still in marching band, I think it would have helped me be a more understanding person much sooner.

When Harper McKinley discovers that someone has created a fake Tinder profile for her and has been using it to flirt with Margot Blanchard, another girl in the marching band, she knows something will go wrong. The book description lays out three potential sources of conflict, her mom is the school dean, Harper isn't sure of her sexual identity, and her dad is a Republican politician getting ready for a big campaign. I picked up the book expecting these sources of conflict to play out in a particular way, but this book wasn't as predictable as I thought it would be.

I really enjoyed how Harper and Margot's relationship evolved through and pleasantly surprised by how topics like asexuality and depression were handled. It's hard to find books with asexual characters and this one does a great job of making a distinction between sexual attraction and romantic attraction without sounding out of place. I would have liked to see more on-page interactions with Harper's family members, especially since most scenes were only one family member at a time. Overall, this was a fun read, especially when you factor in the cute interactions between Harper and Margot's sister, Issy, who is autistic.

As a queer person and a former band geek, I was so excited when I saw this book. I was ready for some sweet sapphic love between two nerds and I wouldn't say I was disappointed in THAT regard. However, there were many other areas in which I was disappointed.

Forward March follows Harper, a senior saxophonist who finds out that someone has been posing as her on Tinder and sending risque messages to a member of the drumline. This is a great story idea, and this is the plot that I was looking forward to. Unfortunately, it feels like the Tinder profile plotline gets sidelined in favor of focusing on her father's political campaign, as he is planning to run for President. This information, for me, is where this author seriously jumped the shark. It went from a "haha semi-relatable" romantic romp to someone trying to skate on the coattails of Red, White, and Royal Blue's success. The political plot simply never meshed with the bit I was actually interested in, and it would have been even more interesting to see Harper and Margot's relationship blossom throughout some investigation of that delicious mystery.

There were moments that I enjoyed, all of the little inside marching band jokes were spot-on. Yes, trumpets ARE obnoxious and the percussion section can NEVER find the beat. I also liked the pop culture references at first, as Harper's favorite shows are also all of my favorite shows, but even those got old by chapter four. The relationship that we finally see between Harper and her brother, Christian, and his boyfriend, Ben, was amazing as well. I wished we had gotten that earlier, but alas, it was a sweet tie-in at the end at least. My favorite thing about this was definitely the solid, well-handled asexual representation that Quinlan gave us. And Harper and Margot's relationship was fun to watch grow and blossom.

However, there were so many parts of this book that either frustrated me to no end or that I simply couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy. As I said, the entire political side to this book, which ended up being a good 60% of it, did not mesh into what I thought was going to be the main plot. Similar stakes could have been made simply by Harper having conservative parents, one of which runs the school. Harrison, the Vice President's son that is apparently desperately in-lust with Harper, also felt like a pointless character. He added nothing to the plot, except as something small to fuel Evelyn's jealousy. Speaking of characters who did nothing more than annoy me, Nadia absolutely sucks. It was obvious that her jealousy over Margot was because of feelings she harbored for Harper, but even having gleamed that subtext, all of her outbursts and arguments felt unnecessarily amplified. Even by the end, when you know the full story, it never feels justified. That happens with a lot of the emotional upheavals of the book, they never really feel deserved. From Harper's arguments with her mother to Harper and Nadia's multiple fights, even Bellamy's final outburst of apology feels terribly over the top and unnecessary. The emotions of the book were hard to follow and I could never quite tell if I was supposed to be mad at someone or not because I couldn't tell how Harper was feeling.

Finally, the ending. The "forgive and forget"-ness of the ending drops this book an entire star for me. What Bellamy, Nadia, and Evelyn did to Harper and Margot was absolutely horrendous. I'm glad Evelyn was expelled, and I can even accept that Nadia and Bellamy were just dumb teenagers making poor decisions (thought I would have preferred hearing that from Harper's voice than Ben's), but making up with Bellamy and Nadia at the very end felt extremely uneared and unsatisfying. If it had been handled differently, it might not have hit so badly with me, but the idea that Harper has to forgive Bellamy and Nadia otherwise Evelyn "wins" is not an idea that I vibe with. Harper doesn't have to forgive people that hurt her like that, and I can't imagine someone forgiving even their best friends that quickly after such a betrayal.

Overall, I had a lot of feelings about this book. It's not the best thing I've ever read, and I'm still disappointed that it wasn't the story I thought I'd be getting from the first couple of chapters. However, the love story, the ace representation, and the sibling interactions were enough to at least get me through the end.

Loved this queer coming of age story from author Skye Quinlan!

I'm not musical at all, but I still really related to Harper's insecurities about her sexuality, and the pressure she felt from her parents.

I loved the friendship that blossomed to more between Harper and Margot! It was very sweet and romantic.

Harper had to face some really hard times, and I loved her interactions with her friends and family, and how she grew to speak out for what she wanted.