You Have a Match

It’s a bit like The Parent Trap for the Instagram generation. Abby’s best friends are doing DNA ancestry tests so she does one too, assuming the most interesting thing she’ll discover is whether or not she is more Irish than Connie. She doesn’t expect to discover that she has an older full-sister, Savannah. Savvy is going to spend her summer at camp, so Abby signs up too.

This has a compelling mystery: why was Savannah given up for adoption and why was she kept a secret from her younger siblings? There are also pranks, accidents and other complications, as Abby and Savvy get to know each other and try to find answers.

I would have liked to see Abby’s camp experiences get a little more time on-page, but admittedly there’s show more just too much else going on -- she’s grieving for her grandfather, struggling with parental pressure over her slipping grades, trying to hide her crush on her best friend Leo, making new friends, and making time for her photography. And then there’s Savvy’s popular wellness Instagram, the pressures she faces from her parents, her romantic problems...

An entertaining and optimistic novel that keeps all the balls it’s juggling in the air. (The ending is maybe slightly more optimistic than it is realistic, and I’d maybe have liked it more if it had cut out some elements in order to give more space to others… but hey, quibbles.)

“They’re going to murder me.”
“They’re going to murder us,” Savvy corrects me.
“How the hell did they figure it out?” I ask, way too loudly for someone who should be trying to go incognito. Did you put something on Instagram?”
Savvy lets out a snort that borders on hysterical [...] “You think I’d put this shit-show on Instagram?”
I’d be mad at her for insinuating that my existence constitutes a “shit show,” but honestly, I’m getting a kick out of this. Bed-headed, no-fucks-given, slippers-clad Savvy is ten times more dramatic than Instagram Savvy, and she's a heck of a lot more fun to watch.
Except Savvy also looks one light breeze away from losing her marbles, so someone has to take control.
“Okay. Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. We’ll head them off and explain… as reasonably as possible… that we have gone behind their backs, dug through the last twenty-years’ worth of their darkest secrets and run away to an island to hide.” show less

This was like a reverse Parent Trap, except with deeper consequences, with a dash of romance thrown in. Even though the story is told from Abby’s perspective, the reader also gets to delve into the feelings of Savvy, Leo and Connie (sister, possible love interest & BFF). This was the second book I have read by Emma Lord and it didn’t disappoint. She touches on family dynamics, the loss of a beloved family member, teens over-obsession with social media and teen burnout from feeling like they are not proving their worth to their parents. Having the setting take place at Summer Camp reminded me of my days as a camp counselor in HS/College. This is one for MS/HS library collections.

Emma Lord is my new favourite author. This is no sophomore slump; she's written two knockouts in a row.

The friendships in this story! Ugh! I love how well drawn all the cast was, and how everyone at camp had their own motivations and goals and quirks that came--or didn't--to fruition. Loved Savvy and how she went from doll-like to humanised. Finn was my absolute favourite.

And most of all I love that this featured someone who wasn't stellar at school, who had other passions and curiosities, and how that was okay. We need more books that show that. And of course, the love story was gloriously sweet, yet not overpowering.

3.5 stars. As in her breakout debut YA novel, [b:Tweet Cute|45045129|Tweet Cute|Emma Lord|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558456354l/45045129._SY75_.jpg|66924806], Emma Lord packs more than her fair share of plot into this book. Abby is an underachieving 16 year old who finds out through a home DNA test that she has an 18 year old sister. Through a series of coincidences that somewhat strain credulity, she ends up at a summer camp with both her sister "Savvy" (Savannah), and her best pal Leo, who she is secretly in love with.

Abby's relationship with Savvy, an Instagram star who seems to have everything figured out, is the highlight of the book. Unlike "The Parent Trap," the two girls know they are show more siblings from their first meeting, but they have to solve the mystery of how they ended up with different parents and with extremely disparate lifestyles. Savvy is a junior counselor to Abby's camper, which leads to some very Parent Trap-like hijinks when Abby rebels against her new sister's authority. So there are many different layers as they try to negotiate the boundaries and dynamics of being blood relatives and total strangers.

The romance between Abby and Leo was my least favorite part of the story, unfortunately, because Lord proved in Tweet that she can craft a swoon-worthy love story. But the "I can't tell my BFF I love him because I'll lose his friendship" is one of my least favorite tropes, and the two spend most of the book laboring under the dreaded Big Misunderstanding that could have been solved if they had JUST TALKED TO EACH OTHER.

Abby is also grieving the recent loss of her beloved grandfather and dealing with parental expectations for her life after high school. Throw in lots of secondary characters, including both Abby's and Savannah's parents, Savvy's girlfriend Jo and her BFF Mickey, and fellow camper Finn whose interest in Abby is difficult to define, and you've got yourself a lot to handle in 300 pages. Fortunately Lord is truly a talented writer with a distinctive voice, and she makes you laugh, cry and wince as Abby stumbles towards her new normal.

I am way too old for this genre (by about 40 years), but Emma Lord may be one of the few YA authors whose work I continue to read (along with [a:Sarah Dessen|2987|Sarah Dessen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1372181953p2/2987.jpg]) because her books contain universal truths that are relevant at any age. show less

When Abby decides to take a genetics profile, she gets a surprise, a sister who’s one year older than her who was put up for adoption! Savannah lives close by… but neither of the girls can figure out the circumstances of their situation, so in a “Parent Trap” type reimaging, they go off to summer camp. I enjoyed the sister time, the friend time, and the writing voice, though admittedly I was most interested in seeing how things would play out with the secret-sisters-adoption hook! And wow, there were some twists and turns and drama-filled scenes when the parents finally came face to face!

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.

Truly, I do not know why I let this book sit in the black hole of kindle-land for months. It's amazing. Yet again, Emma Lord has hooked me with lovable characters, great humor, and yummy food. (seriously Emma, you owe me food now.)
What I really liked seeing was the sister relationship between Abby and Savvy. It felt so real, complex, and complicated. Their difficulties in understanding each other and their new connection were perfectly written and it felt like they were sitting next to me.
I also have to note that I ship Leo and Abby so much.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Lord's books are addictive reads that are difficult to put down. I highly recommend this one for fans of emotional ya contemporary stories.

Rating: show more 5/5
Language: a**, d***, s*** f***, probably a few others that I missed
Romance: a few kisses, girls in relationships with girls
Spiritual: n/a
Violence: n/a

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All thoughts are my own and a positive review was not required. show less

When Abby's friend Leo convinces her to take a DNA test with him, she's not expecting much -- maybe she'll get some health insights or something. The LAST thing she expects is to find out that she has an older full-blooded sister who lives just 30 minutes away in another Seattle suburb. Abby and Savvy meet up and neither has any ideas about why their parents would conceal something like this from them, and no real ideas for how to get them to open up further. And Savvy is leaving in a few days to be a counselor at the summer camp on a nearby island that she's been going to her whole life -- so she convinces Abby to sign up for camp so they can spend time figuring out what on earth happened.

This had major Parent Trap vibes, but age them show more up 10 years and add a mystery element -- Abby and Savvy's parents looked like they were friends in the photos they were able to find, so what happened to drive them apart? The first third of the book felt slightly stilted to me, like the author was still finding the characters' voices, and as a Seattleite, the Seattle references felt kind of heavy-handed -- weirdly specific in some places and then super vague and wrong in other places. I kept going because I was still enjoying the story as a whole, and I'm glad I did because I couldn't put this book down by the end. There were several different storylines woven together -- the secret sister thing, Abby's spiraling grades and school problems, Abby and Leo's almost-romance -- and I thought Lord did a really good job of bringing them together and tying them all up in a very cohesive way that managed to feel like no plot element was ignored but also it wasn't TOO tidy. 4 stars. show less