Ophelia After All by Racquel Marie
pages: 352
released: February 2022
publisher: Feiwel & Friends
cover love: ♥♥♥♥♥

Ophelia Rojas knows what she likes: her best friends, Cuban food, rose-gardening, and boys – way too many boys. Her friends and parents make fun of her endless stream of crushes, but Ophelia is a romantic at heart. She couldn’t change, even if she wanted to. So when she finds herself thinking more about cute, quiet Talia Sanchez than the loss of a perfect prom with her ex-boyfriend, seeds of doubt take root in Ophelia’s firm image of herself. Add to that the impending end of high school and the fracturing of her once-solid friend group, and things are spiraling a little out of control. But the course of love–and sexuality–never did run smooth. As her secrets begin to unravel, Ophelia must make a choice between clinging to the fantasy version of herself she’s always imagined or upending everyone’s expectations to rediscover who she really is, after all. (from Goodreads)

Review:

After spending a lot of time deep in the realm of fantasy, picking up Ophelia After All was a great palate cleanser.

Ophelia has always been boy-crazy but now she doesn’t know how to process the fact that her current crush is on Talia Sanchez, a Black and Puerto Rican girl from school. She hides her new revelation and feelings from her family and closest friends which makes her pull away from everyone and everything she loves. She doesn’t know how to tell them what’s going on because in all honesty she doesn’t really know herself. She’s changing and she’s scared no one will accept it or take it seriously.

Going into OAA, I was expecting more romance as well as a story about a girl finally coming out to her friends and family. And though it does have those aspects, it did not come through as a rom-com about girl meets girl. This is definitely more coming of age/growing up, growing apart after high school/coming out.

At first, I was not connecting with the story, I felt like it was because of the narrative voice. It wasn’t working for me. However, I know I’m not the target audience for this novel. I decided to keep going and the narrative started to flow much better by the 50% mark. The content of the book was not so much romance as it was about friendship and being young and unsure of your own identity, especially when high school is about to end. I’m not saying there weren’t couples or people liking each other but there was a lack of swooning. I also got tired of hearing about prom and everything being centered around that theme but again, I know this is YA. The novel also seemed a bit long and had a lot of conversations or scenes that could’ve been clipped or taken in a different direction to become more relevant.

But Ophelia’s character did start to grow on me after awhile and I wanted her to succeed in her goal of getting Talia. This novel definitely checks a lot of boxes, it’s inclusive and diverse. Being mixed myself, it was refreshing to see a cast of multi-racial characters and sharing some of the same feelings as Ophelia about being mixed (she’s Cuban and Irish) and never feeling like you fit into one side or the other (girlllll, I can relate)! By the end of the book, you begin to see how most of Ophelia’s friends don’t have their sexualities figured out and they are going to probably spend a part of their lives trying to navigate those feelings of asexuality, pansexuality, bisexuality, etc and may cross back between different terms from time to time. I really liked the scene where Ophelia does not pick a flag to identify with and Wes says it’s ok. His character being Asexual also stood out to me and I was surprised at how he identifies with it. There were a lot of side friends/besties in this novel but Wes was my favorite.

All in all, I think Ophelia After All was a good read, it definitely had some aspects to it that I found relatable and enjoyable. And yes, I found myself getting a bit teary-eyed at times, lol. I think Marie has written a book that will be loved by teens and young adults from all genders identities and backgrounds as they can probably find a little of themselves in the characters.

Favorite Lines:

But a life spent waiting is not a life spent loving. It’s a life spent wasting away on the promise of something you’re not guaranteed.

The lover is the one who waits.

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