ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
OLDER FICTION
Drake, Julia

Lovesick Falls

336 pp. | Little | June, 2025 | Trade ISBN 9780759557826 $19.99 | Ebook ISBN 9780759557444 $12.99
(2) YA 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.
Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2025

RELATED 

OLDER FICTION

What Beauty There Is
by Anderson, Cory
OLDER FICTION

Between Perfect and Real
by Stoeve, Ray
OLDER FICTION

Zoe Rosenthal Is Not Lawful Good
by Werlin, Nancy
OLDER FICTION

Home Is Not a Country
by Elhillo, Safia
OLDER FICTION

All Our Hidden Gifts
by O'Donoghue, Caroline
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?