Nobody in Particular

Gr 9 Up–Danni is an American scholarship student in the Catholic and European country of Henland. She is also a closeted bisexual sporting a crush on the unattainable Princess Rosemary, a fellow student at Henland’s most exclusive answer to American high school, Bramppath College. Then, one night, Rose kisses Danni, and the question facing the two girls is no longer whether their attraction is mutual—it’s how to keep their budding relationship under wraps. Although the driving plot is rom-com–adjacent, it is also set in the aftermath of a tragic overdose death, which creates a wide emotional range that narrators Gail Shalan and Imani Jade Powers do an excellent job of covering. The narration is consistently well-paced and emotive, with unusually sleek integration of text conversations between characters. The plot itself offers more complexity than many popular romances, tackling with nuance and care Danni’s discomfort with being the center of attention (an unfortunate trait in an ­aspiring concert ­pianist) and Rose’s grief after her friend’s death. There is some racial diversity in side characters; Rose and Danni are both white. ­