Love in 280 Characters or Less

March 15, 2025
A teen embarks on a journey of self-discovery and new love in college. Eighteen-year-old Sydney Ciara Warren is a Black girl who's just started her first year at Coastal Virginia University. She loves fashion and writing and has her own blog where she shares her opinions and style tips. Syd left everything familiar from back home behind in Chesapeake, Virginia, including her best friend, Malcolm, who's attending Piedmont University. Now she has to make new friends and choose her major; her lawyer mom wants her to choose a prelaw track, but Syd is considering other paths, like English, sociology, and fashion writing. She takes to Twitter, where she finds potential friends who attend CVU--and even a new crush. But while browsing graphic novels and manga, she meets Xavier, a Black guy from Washington, D.C., who becomes her first boyfriend. Syd navigates both the real and the digital worlds as she tries to figure out her own path in life. Stringfield pulls readers in through Syd's engaging first-person voice and her interactions with the diverse supporting characters. The story is told through varied formats--including blog posts, texts, news stories, and tweets--helping to sustain readers' interest. Syd comes across as a fully formed character with concerns, anxieties, doubts, and desires that many readers will find relatable. A charming and romantic coming-of-age story that speaks to both contemporary and evergreen issues.(Romance. 14-18)

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April 22, 2025
Grades 9-12 To get the awkward--and titularly obvious--bit out of the way, Stringfield's novel revolves around Twitter. It's also told in texts and personal blog posts, with both public and private posts that can become difficult to easily distinguish by readers. The story itself centers on Sydney Ciara, a Black girl just starting college away from her best friend, Malcolm. She blogs and tweets about fashion and her social life, generally fun and happy-go-lucky subjects that make the book read like a delightful rom-com, especially as she enters into a relationship with a boy on campus. Taking a hard turn slightly over halfway through, however, the book becomes much more serious and heart-wrenching as Sydney Ciara begins posting about a Black student dealing with police brutality at Malcolm's college. Though the book might have been timelier if told via Substack or Reddit, it does an excellent job of contemplating art as politics and will find a receptive audience in older, college-bound teens.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 21, 2025
In this optimistic romance by Stringfield (Love Requires Chocolate), Black 18-year-old Sydney Ciara Warren leaves her home in Chesapeake, Va., to attend Coastal Virginia University. As she adjusts to living on campus, she’s distracted by thoughts of her best friend, Malcolm, who’s thriving at Georgia’s Piedmont University. Struggling to make friends on her own, Syd heeds the advice of her trusted hairstylist sister, who suggests using social media to meet new people. Syd connects with others on Twitter and starts writing a blog, which she uses to work through myriad personal dilemmas, including whether she should pursue a law degree, as her mother desires, or forge her own path. While browsing through a comics store IRL, she meets Xavier, a Black CVU international relations major with a beaming smile. Even as Syd and Xavier pursue a romantic relationship, however, she finds herself swooning over social media user YoungPrinceX. Stringfield utilizes a series of formatted blog posts, text messages, social media posts, and more to deliver a timely and intimate interpretation of one Black girl’s experience embracing a period of transition, emotional upheaval, and self-discovery. Syd is a relatable protagonist whose magnetic personality smoothly propels readers along in this charming slice-of-life novel. Ages 14–up.