by Susan Choi
First published 2019
Sarah and David are freshmen at an elite performing arts high school in early 1980s suburban America. They fall deeply in love within the intense environment of their acting classes, where students pursue Shakespeare, music, and movement with fierce ambition. Their passionate romance catches the attention of everyone around them, especially their magnetic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley, who begins to manipulate their relationship. The school creates a protective bubble where family pressures, economic realities, and academic stress seem to disappear. But the outside world eventually crashes through in a series of shocking events that thrust the story years into the future. What readers think they know about Sarah, David, and their classmates turns out to be incomplete. The truth emerges only in the book's final revelation, which reframes everything that came before and exposes the real dynamics between the teenagers and the adults who held power over them.
Genres: fiction, drama, romance, literary-fiction, contemporary, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Suburban America
Period: 1980s
272 pages · Hardcover · Serpent's Tail
Content warnings: abuse, gaslighting