Going Off Script

Gr 8 Up—A summer internship turns into a fight for representation on the small screen. Bex is beyond excited when she is hired as an intern on the set of her favorite television program. Unfortunately, the showrunner is something of a nightmare: he yells at the staff, sends Bex on quests for fresh pastries, and plagiarizes a script she wrote for the season finale. When he also turns her queer characters into straight characters, Bex decides she's had enough. With her almost-girlfriend, Bex takes on the studio and its representation of queer characters in a show she has loved since the beginning. Readers who are willing to suspend their disbelief that an intern would write a script that is stolen by the showrunner will enjoy this story immensely. Despite Bex's unlikely opportunity, the characters in this story are likable and interesting. Unfortunately, the supporting characters are left undeveloped in an effort to display Bex's growth throughout the novel. The focus is clearly on Bex and her struggle both with her identity and her choice to ask for and expect queer characters on television. Frequent, casual references to the author's novel The Brightsiders detract from rather than contribute to what is a good story about fighting for representation in the media. Give to fans of Britta Lundin's Ship It or Amy Spalding's The Summer of Jordi Perez.