PARTLY CLOUDLY

Soto’s volume of tender and truthful love poetry for teens is divided into two sections, the first titled “A Girl’s Tears, Her Songs” and the second called “A Boy’s Body, His Words.” The deceptively simple poems examine love from many angles in verses that are by turns funny and poignant. In “Obsession,” a girl talks about having so many pictures of her boyfriend that her optometrist says, “A curious case. Young lady, there’s a picture / Of a boy at the back of your retinas.” “Vegan for Your Love” features a boy bemoaning all the types of food he must relinquish (and the four pounds he’s lost!) for his vegan girlfriend. In “Faces” a boy draws happy faces on his girlfriend’s fingertips only to inexplicably fall in love with another girl later that day. When he breaks the news—and his girlfriend’s heart—he looks at her fingertips: “the ink had run. / Each little face / Was sobbing, dropping / Little black tears.” A gentle, affecting collection. (Poetry. 12 & up)