A healthy dose of sunshine, social anxiety representation, and swoony mystery boys.
I’m a sucker for YA rom-coms—and an even bigger sucker for mental health representation in YA novels. If you can manage to braid them together, you have my attention. Kara McDowell’s 2022 YA, This Might Get Awkward does just that. And I’m still thinking about it a year later.
This Might Get Awkward is a sun-soaked, lakeside romance narrated by seventeen-year-old Gemma, a girl with crushing social anxiety. When Gemma is the only one to witness an accident at Lake Powell that puts her long-time crush and town icon, Beau, into a coma, everyone—including Beau’s mysterious older brother, Griff—is led to believe Gemma is Beau’s girlfriend. Gemma tries to set the record straight, but her social anxiety and pressure from the town and media keep getting in her way.
This Might Get Awkward is a young adult summer spin on the 1995 romantic comedy While You Were Sleeping. For those of you who don’t have a memorized list of all 90’s rom-coms, this book falls into the “uh-oh I fell in love with the wrong brother” trope. Rather than diving in front of a train in Chicago at Christmas time to save her crush, Gemma dives into Lake Powell at the beginning of summer to rescue Beau. Although the setting steps away from the Christmas story While You Were Sleeping represents, Lake Powell creates a radiant and well-described backdrop for Gemma’s coming-of-age story.
Kara McDowell creates a main character who remains bright and relatable in the midst of her anxiety. McDowell’s characterization artfully crafts humor and wit in a story that at times feels heavy as the reader is stuck inside Gemma’s mind. Characterizing social anxiety could look like a one-dimensional character who lives every day paralyzed by her inaction. Instead, McDowell gives Gemma a dynamic and endearing voice: “Each addition kicks my heart rate up another notch, like my body is preparing for battle. Music? Threat. Fun? Double Threat. People? Triple threat. I can’t dance, I don’t know how to have fun, and I’m mostly incapable of being around people.” Gemma’s voice allows the reader the chance to laugh and maybe see a little bit of her inside themselves in moments that feel particularly relatable.
Another of my favorite Gemma moments that reveals her endearing inner monologue reads, “[She] hugs me again, tears running freely down her cheeks. Someone get this woman a drink of water before she dehydrates.” Gemma’s inner and outer dialogues offer a refreshing insight into what anxiety might look like in a coming-of-age story, while simultaneously supplying readers with laughter, insight, and heart.
If you’re looking for a book with a healthy dose of sunshine, social anxiety representation, and swoony mystery boys who play guitar and occasionally quote Taylor Swift, look no further than Kara McDowell’s This Might Get Awkward.
—Review by Peyton Marquez
