Foolish Hearts ~ Emma Mills

Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
320 pages
ISBN: 9781627799379

 

I have to start by saying that this was a total bookstagram impulse pick.

I feel like few people have even read it, yet, but it was in, I think OwlCrate, and so pictures are everywhere, right now I basically just bought it because the cover is absolutely delightful.

In all honesty, I didn’t do a lot of research before picking it up and the jacket blurb was not all that enticing.

I’m saying this as a disclaimer because the book is really the most adorable contemporary I’ve read in a while and I don’t think I would have given it a fair chance based on the blurb alone. I am so glad I did, though.

Mills had my heart when the story began with a high school production of Midsummer Night’s Dream, which, if you know me at all, you know it is why I got into Shakespeare and theater in the eighth grade. The story doesn’t really follow the plot of the play as far as I could tell but it has an element of intensely dynamic relationship drama which Mills manages to paint in both tragic and adorable light.

I did get frustrated with the characters throughout the book because they were being appropriately foolish but if you know the play and you know high school theater kids, it really makes a lot of sense. I won’t give too much away other than saying that I was darn near inconsolable when I reached the last page. I was suddenly reminded why I very rarely read standalone books. It’s because when I find an incredible cast of characters, I generally want to hold on top them long after the story ends.

There is also the happy unexpected element of queer girl romance that is woven in so normally that I essentially wanted to kiss the book. It isn’t a big deal or dramatized; it just exists which is a lovely change in trend and something that would have made me feel validated as a queer teenager.

Overall, Foolish Hearts is such a cute book and I would definitely recommend it.