I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley. This is my honest review.

This has been on my TBR pile for so long, and I'm glad I finally got around to it. I really enjoyed the storyline and seeing the characters change throughout the story was a great character development. The plot was great and kept my attention. I'm glad I got the chance to read this and will be on the lookout for more in the future!

Such an interesting concept. Totally something I'd recommend to my students.

thanks to netgalley for a free copy of the book.

really enjoyed this one! story is that an asteroid is going to hit earth. yuri is a17 year old Russian physicist who's on loan to NASA to help come up with ways to stop it. he meets an American family. story ensues.

Yuri is GREAT. Dovie, Lennon and their parents are also completely great. the story is well told. I do not know much about science, but it seems sound?

I do not love the end because it's too abrupt. I wanted to keep reading about these characters!

I wanted to love Learning to Swear in America, but it just didn’t grab me. It was a solid read, with decent plotting and writing, but I couldn’t really connect with the characters.

The premise is a mix of apocalyptic fiction (asteroid about to destroy the world) and Manic Pixie Dream Girl shows Nerdy Protagonist how to live. It’s trope-y, but it’s done cutely. The writing was strong, if a little slow.

The biggest problem is that I just couldn’t get invested in Yuri, the arrogant but brilliant 17-year-old physicist who has the answer to saving the world. While Katie Kennedy managed to balance his huge ambitions ego with a good heart, I feel like his journey got a little lost once he met “regular” teenager Dovie and her hippie family. Part of this was because Dovie is so much a manic pixie dream girl that it frustrated me (she was SO conveniently available for him), but it’s also because I couldn’t get into their romance. It all just felt a little too twee for me.

That said, there were definitely some heavy moments that dealt with responsibility and doing the right thing. Those were the best parts for me, because they built on themes that I thought were maybe more important than just Yuri learning to have fun.

I wanted to love this book more, but it ended up just being an okay read. That said, while it was a bit beyond me, I could see a lot of people really enjoying the writing and the unique main character. Recommended for: people who have a quirky sense of humour, and who really, really like science.

Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy is a cute and hilarious YA novel about Yuri, a 17 year old Russian physicist. Yuri is recruited by NASA/JPL to help stop a giant asteroid from colliding with Earth and taking out California. Yuri struggles to find his place among the older physicists on his team and trying to get them on-board with a plan he knows will save everyone. The issue is that although Yuri is on his way to winning a Nobel Prize for his work, he lacks social skills. As in, he has none what so ever, and this makes him come across as cold, rude, and ill-mannered to his co-workers. Which makes his new environment difficult for Yuri to adjust to and leaves him feeling isolated. Along the way, Yuri meets a quirky 16 year old girl named Dovie. Dovie is an artistic and quirky 16 year old girl whose father works as a janitor at the JPL. Dovie completely turns Yuri’s world upside down and makes him re-evaluate what is important to him.
I really enjoyed this book. Kennedy’s writing is clever and witty. Her characters are engaging and fully fleshed out so they practically come to life off the page. Although, this book has a diverse cast of characters I cannot say whether or not this has accurate representation as I have never met anyone from Russia. What I can say is that I found Yuri’s character to be very endearing and completely awkward. I just wanted to give the poor guy a hug and tell him to not give up. He faces so many obstacles in his work environment because he is discriminated against due to his age and because he is Russian. My other favorite character is Dovie. She is unique and artistic. Her point of view on the world is different from Yuri’s. Yuri is more of a logical thinker while Dovie is an intuitive thinker. This works for them as a pairing because they balance each other out.
This isn’t a romance though it does have romantic elements. The overall plot is about Yuri saving the world by stopping this gigantic asteroid that is intent on destroying it. There is so much tension in this story that I could not put it down. The tension continues to build with every chapter. I won’t tell you if he manages to save the world or not. You’ll have to read the book to find out.
All in all this was a fun and surprisingly insightful read. There are times where things get pretty deep into the philosophical side of things, but those moments are tucked in between moments of off the wall humor. There is quite a bit of profanity though so if that bothers you considered yourself warned. I ended up rating this a 3.5 stars out of 5. It was a bit too cutesy for me, but I think because it wasn’t really intended for an audience my age. It was very entertaining and adorable though, so if that is your thing then you should check it out.