Thursday, November 26, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore

 


Miss Meteor is a short YA novel co-written by authors Tehlor Kay Mejia (We Set the Dark on Fire) and Anna-Marie McLemore (Blanca & Roja).  It's more of a YA queer teenage rom-com than a fantasy novel - the fantasy element here is one of the main characters literally comes from the stars but that's more a metaphorical plot device than anything, so if you're looking for a clear genre work, you're not going to find it here.  This is the tale of two 16 year old girls who don't quite fit in - two brown hispanic girls, one pansexual tomboy and one short and stocky who talks to cacti for fun, and neither in any sense popular.

And this is a tale that is just incredible sweet and charming and had me smiling by its end, in sheer joy at how things turn out.  Our two protagonists feel both totally real and easy to root for, as they strive just one time to make something for themselves, and the romances they get involved in are just so so sweet, even if it takes them both a long time to figure it out.  The side characters are well done as are the antagonists, and while the general description totally could come out of a classical teenage rom-com, it all takes place instead in a world filled with people who classically didn't get to be in those Hollywood works - the Hispanic/non-white-skinned girls, the poor communities in small towns, and those who aren't cis or straight.  The result is a YA book that will absolutely be a darling to a populace who badly needs books like this, and I'd recommend it for others as well.  

---------------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
For the town of Meteor, the yearly Miss Meteor teenage beauty pageant is one of the town's biggest attractions - attracting out of town visitors, promoting local businesses, etc.  The pageant crowns one high school age girl as Miss Meteor, and while any girl of high school age can enter once, everyone knows the winner is always the same type of girl: a skinny typically-beautiful white girl, often one with family histories of winning the pageant.

In short, absolutely not a girl like Lita Perez - a short and stocky girl made of starstuff - or Chicky Quintanilla - a closeted pansexual tomboyish girl.  But when Lita realizes that her body is dissolving into starstuff and that she only has limited time left, she decides to go for her old dream of winning the pageant.  And when Chicky has enough of the local girl bully Kendall - the favorite for winning the contest - she thinks the best thing possible would be to help someone else win. 

And so Chicky and Lita, once friends until secrets drove them apart, come together once more to try and win a contest that never rewards people like them.  And in the process they'll rediscover their friendship and perhaps more - who they are, what they love, and what grounds them on this Earth....   
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Miss Meteor is in many ways a predictable book.  You have two girls as your protagonists, who are formerly best friends and are obviously destined to reconcile - you have two boys who are obviously their eventual love interests, even if one girl can't quite see it for basically the entire book and the other girl is afraid of what would happen if she admits it to herself and to the boy.  You have a moment in which one love interest acts out when hurt by trying to get a protagonist jealous like in so many other stories, and as antagonists you have an asshole jock boy who attacks the protagonists with homophobic and racist gibes.  And Miss Meteor does the traditional parts of this type of story very well, mind you, even if they are predictable.

But what makes Miss Meteor truly special, and a book that I truly loved, was what it changed from the typical formula.  Our two protagonists are brown skinned Hispanic girls, with Lita, the one who enters the beauty pageant, being short and stocky, and no amount of makeup is going to change that.  The other protagonist, Chicky, is a pansexual girl who has been the subject of homophobic jibes since she was 9, and is afraid of what would happen if she comes out in such a traditional town.  One of our two love interests is Cole, a trans boy who is accepted in the town with reservation mainly because he A. belongs to a well-liked family and B. is good at sports, and a small part of the story involves him telling those others around him to shove off and accept for who he is because of well, who he is.  Our heroes each have a loving family - Lita in her mother-figure and fellow otherworldly woman and Chicky in her three sisters, who despite having their own personalities (well one of them does) and despite a beginning portrayal that suggests they might be antagonistic, really care at heart.  

The result is a story that is truly charming and lovely from beginning to end, especially as we get to the book's final act.  It helps of course that our protagonists are so so damn lovable.  Chicky's fear of coming out of the closet and her related fear of admitting to others her feelings are easily understandable, and the way those fears play out with her other times seemingly fearless inventiveness and drive once she gets it in her head to try and do something, whether that be playing beer pong (sort of) or helping Lita win the pageant, is really delightful to read.  Lita's fear of dissolving into starstuff without having done anything, without friends, is similarly relatable and when that's added to just her pure-hearted goodness (I don't know any better way to describe this), you also just can't help but root for her.  Lita is the type of girl who can find out an antagonist who has done nothing but be an ass to her is having her own trouble and who will then sympathize despite it all, and I loved her - even if she is a little clueless about the boy who is right there in front of her.  

And well, this is a plot that may be predictable at times, but is still quite a bit unpredictable in how it doesn't follow the romcom conventions of when and where things go wrong, especially past the first act (the boy in revenge trying to make Chicky jealous moment aside, which is the only part that didn't really quite work for me).  Take for example a moment in the final act in which our protagonists and their boys decide at last minute to go to the big party thrown by kids around the pageant - a classic staple of the genre in which usually things would end badly, with embarrassment or somewhat and a moment afterwards of realization...but here it doesn't - both our protagonists have instead moments of love, and the only confrontation with the antagonists is a moment of prideful declaration for both Lita and Chicky (and Cole as well).  

The result is a book that's quite short but is just utterly delightful, and if you're looking for a YA rom com story that isn't about the typical cis white protagonists, my god could you be hard pressed to do better than Miss Meteor.  
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