DONUT SUMMER

A summer job at a local donut shop leads a teen to community engagement—and love.

When 16-year-old Penny Dexter-Laroche, who’s cued white, learned that her moms are struggling to pay the medical bills for her 6-year-old sister Nikki, the smallest of the triplets, she decided to start her own college fund so she could fulfill her dream of majoring in environmental science and making a difference in the world without straining the family finances. Finding a job at Delicious Donuts, a beloved institution in tiny Verity, Oregon, was the easy part; what was hard was learning she’d be working with Mexican and Italian American genderqueer classmate Mateo della Penna. Penny has long been drawn to cool Mateo, but they only take breaks from ignoring Penny when they’re being “strangely antagonistic” toward her in history class. After Penny learns that Delicious Donuts’ owner, Elen Arshakyan, is considering selling the store to a corporate chain, she and Mateo end up working together to try to raise the shop’s profile to bring in more business—and in the process, they fall for each other. Their romance blossoms too quickly to feel fully organic, detracting somewhat from its believability. Kelly’s YA debut is a quiet, character-driven story; well-timed chapter endings keep the story moving. Descriptions of the shop’s regulars complete the picture of small-town charm.

A sweet love story set against a well-drawn Pacific Northwest background.