Something Like Possible is about a girl named Madison who's having the worst day of her life. Her girlfriend, Jade, dumped her and fired her as her campaign manager and then she rear ended her teacher's car during her driving lesson.
Instead of wallowing in self pity, she comes up with a new plan: be a campaign manager for someone else. Enter Victoria, a girl who does poetry slams. Everything seems to be looking up for her until she and some other queer classmates uncover a pattern of harassment within the student government.
So, Madison is intense. She's always focused on the campaign, numbers,, etc. She considers Victoria's friends employees of the campaign basically and acts like they need to get in line. Glitter on high school election posters? Not on her watch! She needs Victoria to win so she can use the campaign as her entry to a prestigious youth politics summer camp. The relationship between Madison and Victoria is ok, but there doesn't seem to be much to it.
The last part of the book annoyed me. Sexual harassment is an important topic and should be discussed, but the way this book goes about it didn't seem realistic. I already wasn't a big fan of the book and this lowered my rating.

High school sapphic romance with a nice blend of cute, light romance and heavier themes. As a former member of my school student government, I really enjoyed the messiness and seriousness of it all.

This is a YA book, it is written for teens, but is thoroughly enjoyable for 18+. The characters remind me of my friends and myself from that time period, each decision felt like it was so big in that bubble. The book slowly turns up the tension to an intense back 3rd. I would suggest taking a look at trigger warnings before jumping in.

Trigger warnings for this book: non-graphic depictions of sexual assault and self-harm, bullying, homophobia, biphobia, and nonconsensual outing.

Thank you to the author, publisher, the FierceReads team, and NetGalley for this e-arc to read and review! This does not sway my opinion, all thoughts are my own.

Something Like Possible by Miel Moreland is a young adult contemporary with queer romance. SLP follows Madison, a high school student who enjoys creating campaigns for people and topics she's passionate about. On the worst day of her life, her girlfriend dumps her and then fires her from the campaign, then she rear-ends the car of a student government advisor that could help her win a spot in at a prestigious youth politics summer camp. Despite this terrible day, Madison quickly forms another plan to work on another campaign for someone else running to be junior class president. She will not let this day get her down. Soon, she finds her perfect candidate - the two get along and play to each other's strengths while also falling for each other.

I know little about political campaigns and found this story to be both fun and educational on the behind-the-scenes of a campaign, even if its one that isn't as grand as a presidential campaign. I was sucked in and enjoying the story, especially Madison's ambition and new friend group that supports each other and lifts them up. I do think I missed my time reading this book, I likely would have enjoyed it more if I was younger, but I had a fun time reading this and rooting for the Veronica x Madison team to win. The story is full of passion and heart, typical high school drama and conflict, up until about 78%-90%. The book description describes "But when she and a group of queer classmates discover a pattern of harassment within the student government, Madison's forced to shift gears once again." Knowing this prior to reading, I was waiting for the pattern of harassment and conflict to be revealed. For it to come to a head so late in the book, mentioning this in the description felt like a spoiler because I was waiting for it to happen. I don't mind this being included in the story since its something necessary to be discussed, especially for the target audience that may experience this, I just wish it wasn't "spoiled" in the description or integrated more seamlessly. The ending almost felt like a completely different book and Madison's sister felt like she was only added in to be a comfort and guide to the victim's at the end (her assault was mentioned like 3 times and then forgotten about.)

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

An excellent YA book with bisexual representation! It feels like reading a book about a young (and queer) Leslie Knope. I definitely recommend this one to any current or former student council members. Or really just any fans of young adult rom-coms.

Something Like Possible was so great. This is a story about queer solidarity, and coming together for the greater good follows Madison, who dreams of becoming a campaign manager. In order to make this dream come true, she needs to manage a campaign for her junior class presidency. Her plans fall through when her girlfriend dumps her and fires her from her campaign. Instead. she finds a new candidate and begins to run a tumultuous, but ambitious campaign. Of course, she falls for her new candidate, and the romance is so sweet. These girls communicate so well and are so supportive. Madison is so ambitious, and her love interest knows and loves this. It's great to see a young woman do what this character does without being told to slow down rethink things or try something else. Madison has a supportive family and friends, and I thought that was so important. They are especially needed about 2/3 of the way through the book when there is a reveal about harassment that has taken place in student government. I saw this coming, but a lot of reviewers didn't. I know the tonal shift here seems out of place, but I thought it worked. These things come out of nowhere, and I thought the author's portrayal of it was thoughtfully done. It makes the themes of solidarity that much more powerful and leads to some truly touching instances of queer students coming together and making a real, genuine change.

Ultimately, this is a must for any library. It's great for high school readers and I think many girls will relate. I also appreciate how it encourages young people to get involved in politics.

Thank you to NetgGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

This book centers around a bisexual teen girl who has ambitions of running political campaigns when they are out of college. Madison starts off the book by being dumped by her girlfriend, who was also the high school presidential candidate whose campaign she was running. Madison has to look for a new candidate and finds Victoria, and the two of the become really close while working together.

I like that there are topics outside of the young romance of this book, including political topics and a teaching breaking the trust of their students.

Overall, I found this book to be enjoyable, but is definitely catered to a younger audience. I do think that if I were a younger person, especially a younger queer person, I would have connected more deeply with the characters. I think this book is also a nice reminder to young people that its great to be motivated and work towards your future, but its also okay to enjoy your youth and live in your teenage moments.

Trigger warnings: This book features different degrees of sexual assault and harassment.

Madison can’t decide what’s worse: getting dumped or getting fired as her ex-girlfriend’s campaign manager for junior class president which will hurt her chances of getting into a prestigious youth politics summer camp. After Madison finds another campaign to manage, she is surprised to encounter personal drama from her ex and is surprised to find herself developing for her crush and junior class president candidate. Everything gets derailed when Madison realizes that she and her queer classmates are being harassed by someone within student government and they all have to decide to handle that.

This book grips you by the hand and runs. There’s no stopping until the end. I laughed and cried with Madison as I read her journey and I imagine other readers will too. There are difficult moments of homophobia and harassment and outings, so be prepared and protect yourself while reading. I like that the author includes trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. I don’t think authors should have to include trigger warnings, but I did like that they were there. To me, it demonstrated the high level of care taken to address the topic.

I also love how ambitious Madison is and how hard she works throughout the book. It’s nice to see her grow as a person beyond just her work though because that’s something that can be really hard to do.

5 out of 5 stars

Love.

I love YA novels that feel slightly generic, but are written with so much love. This book feels like a generic YA (in the best way), but it turns out to be so much more. Kudos to Moreland for writing such a balanced novel.

I love the school politics: Moreland makes it fun and it's perfectly interwoven into the story.

Moreland also does an AMAZING job at writing the romance in this novel. It gives all the feelings of falling in love and crushing on someone as a teen. I felt extremely nostalgic reading it.

Something Like Possible is the kind of book I wish I had when I was a teenager!

Full of ambition, friendship, and queerness, this story of an aspiring campaign manager falling for her candidate in the middle of their high school election season was so sweet. It didn’t shy away from sensitive topics like homophobia, outing, and abuse of power, while still keeping it light (for the most part) and fun to read!

Thank you NetGalley and Feiwel and Friends for this arc

Miel Moreland is seriously one of the most underrated authors of queer YA fiction. To be completely honest, I didn't know what to expect from Something Like Possible because it's so different from Miel's first book, but it was so amazing—I devoured it in a span of hours. You know how there's discourse about YA books pandering towards adult audiences? Not a concern here; this book was absolutely written for teens. It really took me back to being fifteen years old and feeling like every single little thing I did would monumentally change my future. Madison is just as annoying as I was at that age, and I love her so much. What an amazing, well-written story.

3.5 stars
TWs: sexual assault (nongraphic/not on page),predatory behavior & grooming (teacher), implied self harm, homophobia & biphobia, bullying, outing

This book made me want to be a campaign manager. Madison's character was so strong, and her passion for campaign managing makes me think that the author must've also wanted that at some point... or at least researched very well for this book. I loved how Madison never compromised her future for anyone, because FINALLY a main character in a romance book that actually has a spine!! Her and Victoria's romance was also really really sweet.

Despite the positives, this book had some serious pacing issues. The synopsis makes it seem like the "pattern of harassment" towards queer girls is a major part of the story, but it only really kicks in at around 80%. I think that all the plot threads do wrap-up by the end of the book, but this specific element feels a little out of nowhere, even if it is an important story. The synopsis just gave me false expectations, so if you go in without them you might have a better experience with this book.

Overall, though, still a great read!

Thank you to PenguinTeen and NetGalley for an eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book starts out as a typical YA novel, filled with typical teenage drama and relationships- cute, and wonderfully queer. Worth reading, but not overly memorable.

But THEN, the 4th quarter of the book takes it to an entirely different place. A very important, sensitively and well handled place. I recently read an older Slate piece that came across my feed that covered some of the same areas, so the importance of this topic (no spoilers) was fresh in my mind. So well done, and it never shied away from the realities of the situation,

Reviewing this as a 30-something educator, and I really loved it! I love that kids today have access to books like Something Like Possible in a mainstream setting. This book would’ve made an impact on me as a queer teen had LGBTQ literature been more prominent at the time and I’ll definitively be recommending students to read this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

My main takeaway from this book is that Madison and I are VERY different people, but I ended up loving her SO much despite that. At first she was definitely a little too intense and overambitious for me, but as I got to know her better, I started rooting for her and wanting all the best things for her.

I absolutely ADORED Miel Moreland's first book, and this is again a really good one. I have to say it spoke a little less to me personally, but that's just a matter of preference, so I'm still super excited to read any future books from this author.

My one criticism would be that the harrassment plotline comes into action very far into the book, which made the book feel a little incohesive, and in my opinion didn't give this plotline the attention or resolution it deserved. I did love the queer solidarity that rose from it, though!

There is nothing I love more than queer stories set in the Midwest, although why are they always in Minnesota? This one took me a little bit to get into, mostly because the main character, Madison, is a lot. I say this as someone who has been a Madison before in their life and knows several people like this, but good lord girl you need to slow down. Madison's dream in life is to be a campaign manager, and she has a very detailed plan to get there starting with running the campaign of the winning junior class president. Her first candidate, her girlfriend, dumps her so Madison moves on to a new candidate. They end up dating and the book took a very different turn from where I was expecting it to go, but with an important message. I wish that Madison would've grown to be a little more chill, there's nothing wrong with ambition, but hers was a little unhealthy imo. All in all, its a good book about queerness, female solidarity, and the not cutthroat (even though Madison makes it out to be) world of student government.

- SOMETHING LIKE POSSIBLE is essentially "what if Leslie Knope was a bi teenager?" and I loved every moment of it.
- Madison's drive makes her at times a frustrating character, but I understood her and cheered for her throughout it all. Plus, Moreland is so good at writing complicated teenage emotions and delicate coming outs.
- This book takes a hard turn at the end into some heavy subject matter. I know it's sometimes annoying to call a book "important," but I think this is for young girls. It's something that's not often explored with nuance at this age level, and I'm glad for it.

I think the book’s strongest part is its characters, especially Victoria, Amrita, and Madison. I love how they relate to one another and their different mannerisms and voices.

Madison is fifteen years old throughout the story, which is an interesting choice for YA and one I don’t see often. I liked the decision to tell the story from a younger character’s perspective, and at first, I thought maybe that was to position the book for lower YA audiences. It did have some f-bombs in it, though, which maybe means it’s not intended for lower YA? I’m not sure.

I enjoyed the political campaign elements of the story a lot more than I expected. I liked that Madison was so thoughtful and had such specific ideas and plans. It was cool watching her figure out how to be flexible with what she wanted, too. I liked that she was unapologetically nerdy about politics. It’s so much fun to read books about a topic where someone is really passionate, and you kind of learn things along the way without setting out to do that.

Overall, I liked many components of the book: the school campaign, the solidarity that grew between characters, and the sweet romance between Madison and Victoria. I think fans of THAT’S DEBATABLE by Jen Doll will love this one.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.

There was a lot going on here and parts were enjoyable but other parts felt rushed and haphazard. Thanks for the ARC

I think it's high time now that I admit to myself that I've outgrown reading YA, at least contemporary stories. This was such a well written story and yet I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. This is definitely a story that teens today should read, so I'd recommend it to others for sure!