After her first queer summer fling gone wrong, Camila Nuñez is ready to turn 16 and have a better year. But on her birthday, her best friend Cindy gives her a tarot reading, and predicts a horrible year to come.

Camila is anxious about the future, another new relationship, her parent’s marriage, and her best friend’s new relationship. Navigating her 16th year might just be the toughest test yet.

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This was a perfect YA story. The anxiety rep, specifically with Camila and her relationships with others, was spot on. I felt like I was reading about my own teenage feelings, and I just know if I had read this as a teen I would have felt so seen.

The characters and the storyline had depth, and the queer rep was fantastic. Even though the book is spread out through an entire year, the pacing of the plot was expertly done and I cannot believe this is a debut book. 100/10 I love this book so much.

Thank you so much to Page Street YA for the eARC AND the physical ARC!

What I Liked: This book opens by introducing you to Camila as she is spending her summer out in Miami with her mom's side of the family. During this time, she meets Sonia, her cousin's boyfriend's sibling, and gets into a tumultuous relationship with her. Because Camila isn't out to any of her extended family, she has to keep this relationship under wraps and can't go to any of them for assistance in navigating this. This one relationship and the way it all unravels frames the rest of the story and how Camila navigates future relationships.

It was important that this book open with Camila's experience with Sonia as that highlights the impact that one negative relationship can have on someone. As you continue reading, this book feels as if you are gaining access to someone's diary as a lot of the thoughts you read are Camila's innermost private thoughts. The nature of the writing makes you feel like Camila is a friend that you are rooting for the enter duration of the book.

For Camila's birthday, Cindy, her best friend, gives her a tarot deck and they pull out tarot cards for the year. The tarot cards don't have a good future predicted for Camila and she instantly starts worrying about what these cards have in store. As you continue reading the anxiety keeps building up in you and you start wondering how these tarot cards are going to play out in Camila's life. The author does an amazing job of transferring the feelings that Camila has regarding the anticipation of the tarot card results into the reader as you share some of Camila's anxiety.

The anxiety representation throughout this book is accurate and relatable. As someone who has suffered with general anxiety the majority of my whole life, I was able to see my experiences reflected in Camila's journey. The negative consequences that Camila's anxiety has on her relationships are accurate portrayals of how anxiety can overtake someone's life.

There is a really strong and powerful moment with Camila and her grandma in which she expresses to her about how you should find something that gives you hope and not makes you fearful. It is in this conversation that Camila also comes out to her grandma and expresses her concern about her reaction because of her religion. Camila's grandma shares that God would want her to love all his creatures and she will love and support Camila as long as she is happy. Both of these conversations reinforce the relationship that I believe one should have with religion, it is not something to fear but something that you lean on for hope.

Final Verdict: Camila Nunez's Year of Disasters provides a great representation of the way anxiety can rule a person's life and the importance of letting others help you navigate life with anxiety. This book is great for young adults who are trying to figure life out or who are struggling with feelings of anxiety, self-esteem, and more.

We already know that humans aren't perfect, much less teenagers. And this novel is a perfect example of that. Our girl Camila here, is a beautiful 16 year old who's not perfect. And the best thing about this book is that she accepts that at the end and vows to work on herself.

If your focus is to read a queer ya romance, then this one's not for you. The book relies heavily on living with anxiety, self-doubt, body issues, and accepting different forms of relationships. While i appreciated these discussions, at times I forgot that we have teenagers as the main character of the novel, because I saw so little of their school experience. Not to mention, it felt a little rushed at the end.

What I loved the most about this book is how wholesome Camila's maternal family is! Truly loved to see her relationship with her Abuela. All in all, I think the story could've been smoothened a bit to encompass the timeline.

If you're looking for a diverse read, then this is definitely your pick since it covers so many different aspects of life, it's truly refreshing!

Camila tells her story with quick-paced, matter-of-fact narration that lets readers see the inner workings of her anxiety as she navigates friendships, family, and romance in ways that are relatable, heartwarming, and humorous at times. Readers get a clear and complete view of Camila, and I found myself cheering her on through her year of disasters! The book features lots of representation that could be great for young readers, but for some of the characters, it leans too heavily on stereotypes.
Thanks to NetGalley and Page Street Publishing for the e-ARC.

A YA coming-of-age journey for one sapphic girl over the course of a year.
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Cuban-American Camila spends her summers in Miami with her abuela. This year she’s fifteen and almost ready to come out to her cousin. When she ends up dating a girl named Sonia who breaks her heart, Camila heads back to North Carolina for the start of her junior year. On Camila’s sixteenth birthday her best friend gets her a tarot deck that portends terrible things to come. Throughout the school year Camila discovers things can always get worse. Is she manifesting these things or are the cards right?
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The representation is fantastic in this young adult book. We have anxiety rep, plus size rep, nonbinary love interest with a sapphic FMC, positive therapy rep, Cuban culture and an overall supportive family. This title releases March 25! Thanks @prhaudio for the ALC. All opinions are my own.

CW: fatphobia, dysmorphia, toxic relationship, homophobia

Had so much potential, but I just didn’t like too many things throughout for it to be a good read for me.

3.5 stars

What I enjoyed:
- Anxiety rep
- Fat rep
- Nonbinary love interest (Devon was fantastic!)
- Cuban culture and feeling out of touch with it
- All sorts of queer rep
- Supportive family
- Positive therapy rep
- The dogs!

What I didn't love:
- The entire first storyline with Sonia. Yes, it set the tone for Camila's insecurity, but it felt like an entire other plot.
- The writing style. It's fine. Not fantastic, but not horrible.
- The whole Harry Potter bit. I hate HP references in queer books, even though I get what the author was trying to do.
- The obsession with the tarot reading without actually researching what tarot was. Camilla could have challenged her anxiety a bit better like she would have learned to do in therapy if she even did a cursory Google search on tarot.
- The judgemental attitude about polyamory. It was challenged and potentially resolved by the end, but I would have liked to see a little more growth from Camilla about it.

There are so many things I would have loved about this book, but the detractors really affected it. It's a solid addition to queer YA shelves with teens being a bit messy and self-centered.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

I really wanted to like this more than I did. The first part of the book is set in Miami and could have been its own book, jamming it into this longer volume felt strange and rushed. Camila is a difficult character to like mostly because she seems to largely lack a personality. I was honestly a little surprised by the conflicts towards the end of the book with her friend and partner, one of whom accuses Camila of being judgemental of polygamy and the other accuses her of making their relationship largely about her own feelings. Camila frankly doesn't say or do enough to really warrant either charge, but given she eventually concedes both are right I think possibly this was a case of the author telling rather than showing? While the book went well out of its way to be inclusive, there were several instances of bigotry from Camila and her best friend that they seem to completely miss despite being hyper aware of other people's biases. Again I am not sure if this was a genuine oversight on the part of the author or a failure to depict within the narrative itself. The plot was also rather obvious, but that's less of a concern to me than the issues regarding pacing and characterization.

As someone who is both queer and non-binary, I was happy this book has good representation of both identities. I also struggle with anxiety, and don't think there are enough YA titles out there that address it well. The only part of the book that didn't really grab my attention was the tarot reading. I'm not very familiar with the practice, but I can imagine some teens will find that aspect of the novel interesting.

Loved all of the queer representation and different relationships (romantic, platonic and familial) that were explored in this book. I love how Camila grows as a character and works through her own insecurities and anxiety through out the book, and framing it with the tarot cards was really fun. The supporting cast of characters ( and dogs!) rounded out the story and helped Camila to grow and accept herself, while challenging herself to take responsibility for her mistakes in relationships.

i feel so bad for rating it this low, i really really wanted to love it, the premise sounded so good i knew i had to read it, but it just didnt grab my attention like i thought it would, i am in a reading mood so i know it's not my slump and i don't want this to throw in so i have to just say this wasn't for me.

I thought this sounded like a really fun book, but I struggled with it. I didn't think it was particularly well written, and a lot of the dialogue made me cringe (also - why are we including Harry Potter references in queer books in the year 2025???). I also just didn't find Camila to be a particularly likable character, or one who was at all ready for a relationship. I think this could have used a lot more editing and drafting before going to print.