January 28, 2019
In the mostly white world of classical music, 17-year-old Ruby Chertok seems like a crown princess. Her father is a composer and teacher, her mother is a pianist, and her three older siblings are musicians. But after failing an audition for the summer program that her father runs, Ruby wonders who she truly is. Then her father’s new protégé arrives: he’s handsome, super talented, and staying in their basement. He and Ruby connect immediately, but can Oscar really date his mentor’s daughter? More pressingly, the school’s board, headed by Ruby’s godmother, wants to position African-American Oscar as the answer to its diversity problems, even if it means misrepresenting and stereotyping him. Thorne (The Wrong Side of Right) keeps a complex plot moving—encompassing Ruby’s reconnection with a childhood friend, her fraught relationship with her absent mother, and Oscar’s drive to compose work—while convincingly depicting the casual racism of seemingly well-intentioned liberals. Given all this, a thread about the board’s financial chicanery seems almost superfluous. At heart, though, this is a timely and romantic story about teens who feel like fish out of water finding the person who understands them. Ages 14–up.
