ARC REVIEW: FINAL DRAFT BY RILEY REDGATE

"When had she risked anything, really? She looked back through her life and saw a procession of schoolday routines, chores, conversational chatter. She felt like a witness to the massacre of all her time. For a horrible moment, she wondered if she'd only ever written science fiction to build an escape chute from her life's insistent monotone."

Thank you so much to ABRAMS Kids/Amulet Books for providing me with an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!!!!!

riley redgate is a treasure and i loved this book so fucking much

where do i even begin

★ First of all, LAILA. Final Draft is one of the most introspective books I've read in a long time. It paints Laila's internal environment so vividly and so poignantly that her being a fully-fleshed character becomes not so much a possibility as an inevitability. The result is a character that is nothing short of brilliant. Laila wants so fiercely, aches so candidly. She is an open book to you, but never comfortably so, never to the point of becoming predictable or easily definable. And so much of the book is about that, about becoming attuned to her experiences, feeling them as keenly as she does. And you do, and I did. 

★ More than anything, Redgate renders vulnerability with so deft a hand in this novel. And its this unquestionable sense of something always being on the line—socially, romantically, academically, personally—that makes Final Draft feel so affecting. It's an exploration of what it means to "put yourself out there," to push the boundaries of what you've taken for granted. As much as that concept has been examined and re-examined to the point of cliché, I think Final Draft is a reminder that just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's any less real. (And the book definitely, definitely doesn't handle it in a cliched way.) And as necessary and gratifying and genuinely fun as "putting yourself out there" can sometimes be, it can also be really fucking scary. That's the reality that Laila has to reckon with throughout the novel, one that is so fully realized and that rang true for me on so many instances. All of this is not to say that Final Draft is a Sad Book, only that it is an authentic one.

★ One thing that is almost undeniable about this book is that Redgate is a talented writer. Everything about this novel works because her writing does. It hits all the right notes—dialogue, introspection, character description, you name it. It's the kind of writing that makes you go ...damn, not so much from the words themselves but from how they are able to convey so much feeling. There was one scene in particular that I'm pretty sure made my brain emit what is the neuroscientific equivalent of "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". I won't mention it here because I don't want to spoil it for you, but oh my goodness y'all, Riley Redgate Went There, and I love her for it. 

★ I think we as a community of reviewers should coin a phrase that we can use when we want to tell people that a book is diverse. Personally, I'm thinking of something along the lines of DDD: Damn, Dat Diversity! (the use of "dat" alone makes me want to internally combust, but all for the sake of the mighty alliteration) Because if that phrase catches on (triple alliteration people !!!), I would without a doubt use it to describe Final Draft. This book is so diverse, and it makes me so happy. Laila is half-Ecuadorian, half-French Canadian, fat, tall, and queer (she reflects on how she thinks the label "pansexual" would fit her best, but she doesn't explicitly come out as pan). Her best friend Hannah (whom I LOVED, by the way) is Korean and a lesbian. There's also a lot of really great exploration of mental health, female sexuality, and racial/ethnic identity, as well as a f/f relationship. Simply put, Damn, Dat Diversity! (I'm rollin with it)

Honestly, I don't know what else to say. I went into this expecting a lot because I loved Noteworthy 
so much, and it didn't disappoint, not even close. Riley Redgate is one of my favourite authors for a reason, and I really think her books speak for themselves. Final Draft was poignant and authentic and personal, and finishing it felt like I'd just Experienced Something.* This glorious book comes out on June 12th this year, and if I can boil down this actually never-ending review to one thing it would be this: read this book. It is so worth it.

*PS: I finished this book on a couch that was on sale in Costco then proceeded to close the Kindle app on my phone and look up into the aisles of wholesale products. don't you just love it when you have A Moment at Costco? truly the quintessential north-american experience