When You Get the Chance

November 15, 2021
A teen seeks the answer to a long-buried family secret during a drama-filled summer. Millie Price knows she wants to perform on Broadway, where her outgoing and larger-than-life personality will shine, and attending a prestigious musical theater pre-college program in Los Angeles for her senior year would help her get ahead of the game, not to mention offering a fresh start after being haunted by an excruciatingly embarrassing viral video from her middle school musical. Unfortunately, she would be leaving behind New York City; her school's epic senior year musical; her theater crew; her lifelong best friend, Teddy; and her single father. The summer after junior year, Millie and Teddy, both implied White, discover the LiveJournal her father kept at age 20 and realize from clues it contains that Millie's mother, who left her as a baby, might be living in the city. Millie leaps into Mamma Mia!-inspired action, tracking down the three women who could be her mother. Chock-full of musical theater references and humor, the novel includes high-stakes emotional drama that is balanced by supportive friendships and strong, deep family connections. The slow-burn rivals-to-lovers romance with Oliver, a Chinese American classmate, is satisfying and relies on a slowly built relationship of trust. Millie's anxiety contrasts with her flamboyant and outwardly confident personality, adding to an intriguing exploration of self-image, self-worth, and belonging as she searches for her mother. An entertaining personal journey with plot twists galore. (Fiction. 13-18)

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Starred review from December 6, 2021
Brimming with energy, rapid-fire banter, and affectionate theater references, this memorable Mamma Mia! retelling by Lord (Tweet Cute) explores the meaning of family. Passionate and focused, 16-year-old New Yorker Millie Price, a presumed-white vocalist and actor, has big Broadway dreams. When her single father, who has raised her since he was a Tolkien-loving 20-year-old, pushes back on her plan to attend a competitive musical theater program in Los Angeles for senior year, despite her landing a partial scholarship, she decides it’s time to seek out her birth mother, who left when she was a baby. With the help of her father’s early aughts LiveJournal, Millie determines that her mother could be one of three women and teams up with her geocache-obsessed best friend, Teddy, who reads as white, to locate them. As she begins to acknowledge internalized insecurities about her origins, personality, and identity, including her all-consuming “Millie Moods,” she competes for a summer internship against her longtime adversary and stage manager, Chinese American Oliver Yang, kicking off an amusing enemies-to-lovers romance. Lord thoughtfully pays homage to a recognizable conceit while skillfully modernizing it for today’s readers with knowing nods to social media and the stresses of contemporary adolescence. Ages 12–up. Agent: Janna Bonikowski, the Knight Agency.

December 15, 2021
Grades 8-12 Millie Price, 16, is a singer obsessed with the dream of making it on Broadway. Until then, she loves to bicker with her archnemesis, Oliver Yang, the student stage manager at their performing-arts high school. Raised by her under-40, introverted dad and gay aunt, Millie never thought much about who her mother is until she accidentally discovers her dad's old LiveJournal. Inspired by Mama Mia! and guided by her dad's angst-filled entries about past relationships, Millie sets out to discover which of three women left her on her dad's doorstep as a baby. Well-placed assumptions, strange bedfellows, and a lot of milkshakes make this a fully joyful story of a talented girl, who also acts as the novel's vivacious narrator. Her relationship with Oliver begins contentiously then evolves to a mutual attraction that progresses nicely on earned trust and respect. Readers who love the theater--musical or not--and anyone craving a happily ever after will want Millie to take a series of curtain calls.

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January 1, 2022

Gr 8 Up-Millie Price has long dreamed of Broadway, and nothing is going to stop her from realizing those dreams-not an embarrassing viral video from her past, not a dad who thwarts her plans to attend the precollege theater program of her dreams in California, not even the rumors that her high school is finally going to be doing a production of Mamma Mia! in the fall. In an effort to pay for her potential new school, Millie stumbles upon a relic from her dad's past that sets her on her own Mamma Mia!-esque quest to discover the identity of her mother and leads her in some completely unexpected directions-to an internship alongside longtime rival Oliver, dance classes in a Brooklyn studio, an informal Broadway sing-along group, and maybe even her own romance. As Millie tries to solve this mystery, she comes to some important realizations about herself, her family, and where her future really lies. The book is full of Lord's characteristic quick wit and delightful banter, and packed with enough Broadway references to satisfy even the most avid theater fan. The rivals-to-romance development between Millie and Oliver is the stuff great rom-coms are made of, but Millie isn't lacking in regard to other supportive friends and family members either. VERDICT Perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli's Kate in Waiting or Marisa Kanter's As If On Cue, theater kids, and rom-com enthusiasts, this would make a great addition to school and public library collections.-Alison Glass

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