ALL THE STARS ALIGN

A teen is torn between a friend and the boy she’s destined to be with.

Eighteen-year-old Piper Hadley doesn’t feel like she belongs in her family. The Hadley women share a Blessing from Fate: the ability to instantly identify true love. But Piper’s mother contradicted the Blessing by divorcing Piper’s father, something her family finds unacceptable. Piper worries that her genetic disability—which left her with scoliosis, a missing finger, and only one kidney—caused her parents’ divorce and indirectly ruined the Blessing. To gain matriarch Aunt Helena’s favor and someday take over the family jewelry store, Piper must get her parents back together and cement her own fate by kissing her one true love. When Fate tells her that handsome Forest MacIntosh is her person, Piper seeks dating tips from her estranged best friend, Leo…and in the process falls for Leo, too. If she makes the wrong choice, will her aunts ostracize her? The relationships between Piper and her parents are movingly portrayed, realistically illustrating the complex feelings surrounding divorce and its aftermath. Unfortunately, the rest of the story falls flat. While Piper’s desire to fit in with her family is sympathetic, her expository narration blunts the emotional impact. Her respective love interests feel two-dimensional, weakening the romantic tension, and Leo and Forest’s objectifying “game of tug-of-war” over Piper strikes a jarring note. Most characters read white; Piper and some secondary characters are cued queer.

Disappointingly underdeveloped.