Late to the Party
From author Kelly Quindlen comes a poignant and deeply relatable story about friendship, self-acceptance, and what it means to be a Real Teenager. Late to the Party is an ode to late bloomers and wallflowers everywhere.
Seventeen is nothing like Codi Teller imagined.
She’s never crashed a party, never stayed out too late. She’s never even been kissed. And it’s not just because she’s gay. It’s because she and her two best friends, Maritza and JaKory, spend more time in her basement watching Netflix than engaging with the outside world.
So when Maritza and JaKory suggest crashing a party, Codi is highly skeptical. Those parties aren’t for kids like them. They’re for cool kids. Straight kids.
But then Codi stumbles upon one of those cool kids, Ricky, kissing another boy in the dark, and an unexpected friendship is formed. In return for never talking about that kiss, Ricky takes Codi under his wing and draws her into a wild summer filled with late nights, new experiences, and one really cute girl named Lydia. The only problem? Codi never tells Maritza or JaKory about any of it.
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Community Reviews
Codi was a delight and I could totally relate to her problems of being shy (wouldn't last a day in itzy), aloof, and diffident. This made witnessing the emergence of a newer sense of autonomy and confidence over herself such a joy to read, and with every outing she embarked on I could feel myself going 'that's my girl!!'.
The character dynamics felt real and I thoroughly enjoyed Codi and Ricky's friendship and its development from being intrinsically one-sided to something reciprocal and wholeheartedly mutual. However, something about JaKory's character and storyline felt a bit off to me. Perhaps its the 'coaxing your friends into driving you out-of-state to meet someone you've only talked to online' bit because it's a pretty difficult idea for me to grasp. Maybe it served as a really drawn out deus ex machina for the main conflict of the book but hey, it did bring a few cute moments so maybe i don't really mind it after all.
The romance bit was done nicely and I didn't really mind the typical YA cliches, it was really adorable actually. And most importantly, Codi x Laura felt very healthy to me and the fact that they got a happy conclusion to their love story is so!!! amazing to me, it's really what they deserve.
[EDIT] GRANT!! how could I forget about him lmfaooo. Something about his character felt very disingenuous and it was pretty hard to believe that he's only 14 years old especially in the manner that he chides Codi with.
4/5
also...... if we could get a book about ricky's relationship that would be more than great hehe
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