My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins, & Fenway Park (review)

For three inseparable friends, the titular "excellent year" is ninth grade. That's when Alejandra Perez, daughter of a retired diplomat, learns to mingle with the hoi polloi at her new public school, challenges parental expectations by pursuing clandestine dance opportunities, and falls reluctantly but hard for smooth-talking, baseball-loving Tony (T.C.) Keller. That's when T.C. launches a bumbling but ultimately successful assault on Alé's heart, joins with Alé in cheerleading his closest friend (and unofficially adopted "brother") Augie through his coming out, and helps a mistrustful little deaf boy, Hucky, establish friendships and self-confidence. And it's the year when Augie Hwong, the Chinese-American guy who had years ago helped T.C. work through the grief at his mother's death, embraces his gay identity, wows the high school with his directorial and musical performance skills, and hooks up with light of his life Andy Wexler. The convergent stories unfold along a paper trail of emails, playbills, IMs, letters, and journal entries from a required retrospective assignment for the trio's junior year, and although the documentary novel is no longer particularly, well, novel, Kluger employs its conventions ably, even mixing in missives among the significant adults in the teens' lives, who quite clearly have lives, pasts, and agendas of their own. The feel-good story takes a tad longer to reach its deliriously happy conclusion than is strictly necessary, but YAs seeking respite from darker, problem-driven novels may find that this pack of good kids (with—gasp—bemused but supportive parents) who work hard for and achieve their bliss is a welcome gust of fresh air.