Review by Booklist Review
What happens when you take a gal with a penchant for planning who can fix any sticky situation, a dude with a passion for clowning and falling in love, and a nonbinary cutie who enchants everyone they meet? Why, you get an exceptionally entertaining adaptation of Shakespeare's As You Like It. Best-friend crew Celia, Touchstone, and Ros (as described above, respectively) have convinced their parents that a summer in the redwoods-laden Lovesick Falls is what they need to prepare for senior year and impending adulthood. Celia and Touchstone gain employment with the local theater festival, and the plan was for Ros to play Hestia at home until they happen upon work--until Jess Orlando comes swinging into the picture. Ros is smitten (the feeling is mutual) and earns a job at the same plant nursery. The only problem is, this was going to be the summer Celia professed her love for Ros. Oh, and Touchstone is in love with Celia. What could go wrong? Drake captures the quintessential queer energy of the original Shakespeare, incorporating plenty of quippy back-and-forth dialogue that will please bardolaters and rom-com fans alike. This piece works as an excellent supplement to a Shakespeare study unit or alone as an entertaining, entertainingly cast rom-com focused on the power of friendships new and old. Readers can trust that this one will end in true delight.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up--Drake creates a queer, lyrical retelling of As You Like It with fitting narration by Dani Martineck. Three best friends watch a relative's house for the summer before their senior year. Nearby is a spring; it is rumored that if you drink from it, you will fall out of love. This is appealing to Celia, who has an unrequited crush on friend and now roommate Ros. Add in summer jobs at a theater company and a celebrity crush visiting in real life, and silly scenarios are plenty. The plot explores the complexities of friendship and the big feelings that are heralded by coming of age. While the writing style has a literary feel, readers will find the balance in the comedic and fun moments throughout. The audiobook opens with gentle, but dramatic, guitar music. Martineck creates distinct voices for Celia and other characters, though Ros and Touch can sound similar. The narrator's tone and mood matches the literary feel of the text, as does the rhythmic and lyrical pacing. The format truly builds upon and enlivens this title. VERDICT A fun, diverse, and modern take with opportunity for classroom connections.--Taylor Skorski
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Celia, Ros, and Touchstone are a "triumvirate" of rising high school seniors. They spend the summer on their own for the first time at a cabin in Lovesick Falls, a town known for its spring that purportedly can make anyone who drinks from it fall out of love. Celia, the ringleader of the summer and of pretty much everything, narrates most of the story: her romantic feelings for Ros and subsequent feelings when Ros sets their sights on a new summer acquaintance; her own flirtation with a celeb crush who shows up at the theater where she has a costume-shop internship; and more. (And if third roommate Touchstone sounds neglected, dear reader, you're less oblivious than his friends are.) Drake's reimagining of Shakespeare's As You Like It has plenty to appeal to theater nerds, language nerds, and fans of queer romance. While the humor is plentiful, there's also lots of introspection in this collective coming-of-age story; this is a friend group steeped in tradition and dearly held in-jokes, but some of its patterns are overdue for reexamination, as occasional point-of-view shifts help to show. Emotions aren't as simple as a drink from a spring, and first steps toward adulthood aren't simple either -- but on this stage, comedy ultimately outweighs tragedy. Shoshana FlaxSeptember/October 2025 p.61 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A plan for three friends to spend the summer together goes awry when love triangles cause tension. Celia Gilbert has carefully planned the trip to Lovesick Falls, a tiny town in a redwood forest whose spring water allegedly causes people to fall out of love. Celia envisions spending the summer before their senior year living in a cabin with her two best friends, Ros Brinkman and Andrew Touchstone, working at local theater festival Arden & Company and watchingPower Jam, their favorite campy British TV show. If this plan also happens to lead to Ros' finally falling for Celia, who's been secretly in love with them for the last year, so much the better. But chaos erupts almost immediately: Ros meets Jess Orlando, a tiny blond boxer, and falls head over heels for her, which makes Celia both angry and jealous. And then there's Oliver Teller, the incredibly hot star ofPower Jam, who has coincidentally arrived at the festival to act in a play and, despite an awkward first encounter, has really taken to Celia (for whom Touchstone has unrequited feelings). In this story based on Shakespeare'sAs You Like It, a play famous for its complex and comic overlapping love triangles, Drake deftly introduces a multitude of beautifully nuanced characters, weaving their stories into a queer ode to friendship, theater, and the complexities of love. Central characters largely present white; Oliver has "deep olive" skin. An exceptional retelling of a classic Shakespearean comedy.(Fiction. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
