You Don't Have a Shot

Starred review from April 3, 2023
Biracial (Colombian and white) 17-year-old Valentina “Vale” Castillo-Green—who describes her sexuality as “almost universally apathetic”—lives and breathes soccer. But following an angry outburst at her rival, Latina lesbian Leticia Ortiz, during a match, Vale is stripped of her captainship. She believes that her dreams of earning a college scholarship and escaping her emotionally abusive father are now forfeit. Her friends persuade her to attend a summer soccer camp intending to play a few games for fun, only for the camp administrators to reveal they’ve invited college scouts to the final match. Vale is certain this is her chance at regaining her lost dreams, but it turns out that Leticia’s at the camp, too, and they’ve been assigned as co-captains. To make it to the final game, Vale needs to train their inexperienced team into fighting shape and figure out how to get along with Leticia, who might not be as terrible as Vale had assumed. Via Vale’s witty and acerbic first-person narration and her palpable passion for soccer, Marie (Ophelia After All) delivers a textured sapphic romp that spins an earned enemies–to–lovers romance amid empathetic depictions of one teenager coming to terms with the effects of her treatment of others, as well as her treatment of herself. Ages 14–up. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary.