Starred Review Tess Sharpe's latest endeavor has all the trappings of a quintessential romance. Longtime rivals, brought together by circumstance, are forced into close quarters. Attraction manifests as irritation and tense encounters. Best friends, who see the truth all along, can't stay out of it. The slow burn lasts years. There really is, truly, only one bed (twice!). There's no mystery in where Penny, a frighteningly organized, has-a-plan-for-everything, former whitewater rafter with immense tragedy in her past, and Tate, a single-minded star swimmer who's allergic to showing emotion, will end up: it's right there in the title. They're going to kiss. They're going to figure it all out. The joy of the book, as it is with most romances, is in the how. And Sharpe uses the seemingly simple structure of this book not only to surgically dissect Penny and Tate's thorny romance but to get underneath their relationships with their mothers (two lifelong best friends), their relationships with themselves, and into the very nature of love. It's not surprising that white teens Penny and Tate have always been in each other's lives. Their moms, who grew up in the same rural, northern California town they live in now, are devoted best friends, and while Tate and her mother, Anna, have always been a tight twosome, Penny was always closer with her father, George, a whitewater rafter who taught her the sport and whose business she hoped to take over one day, than she was with her artist mother, Lottie. When George died traumatically and left both Penny and Lottie unmoored, it was Anna who cared for a broken Lottie, leaving Penny in her grandmother's care. Now, several years later, Penny and her mother circle each other warily as Penny struggles to heal from the wounds left by both her parents and to move on, while Lottie's anxieties only create more friction between them. Into this tension come Anna and Tate; Anna, who has always had a history of serious health problems, now needs a liver transplant, and Lottie has agreed to be her living donor. With both moms recovering from surgery and the medical expenses piling up, the families agree to join households to save money. But the tension between Penny and her mom has nothing on the weird dynamic between Penny and Tate, who've resented the proximity their moms' friendship has always placed them in and who have bickered and sniped at each other their whole lives t also just can't . . . seem . . . to stop . . . almost . . . kissing each other. Now that they're going to be living together, they've agreed to a cordial truce to create a peaceful environment for their recovering moms, and also because figuring out their dire financial situation is going to take teamwork (and all of Penny's spreadsheet skills). But they've never had to deal with such close quarters before, and all those buried feelings might explode. Sharpe breaks the book into seven carefully constructed sections, each built around an almost-kiss (or, for one part, an actual one). Both Penny and Tate narrate, in the past and in the present; occasional passages of text-message threads are interspersed between chapters. In a story that's about disruption, change, grief, and the frustrating work of healing and reconnection, the structure of the book offers safety and reassurance. It gives Penny and Tate a foundation upon which to stand, flourish as individual characters, and meet each other at a place of mutual respect. The end result of this, of course, is not just a love story but a braid of them. As Penny and Tate embark on their own romance, a development that surprises no one but them, their story is supported by the love stories that surround them: of Anna and Lottie's fierce friendship, of George's sweeping love for Lottie and undying devotion to Penny, of the support Penny found from other friends and family when her mother couldn't be there for her. And as each brick is laid and each step taken, it circles that same idea: that real love, whatever it looks like, is rarely something found by accident is built and tended to and discovered again and again.

Two girls navigate life in a small town, orbiting their mothers and each other.Penny and Tate have been stuck with each other through their moms' best friendship. Although they don't always see eye to eye, they do have a lot in common: They're both 17, they both care deeply about their mothers-and they both like girls. The latter has made them come close to kissing on several occasions-six, to be exact. Not that they've talked about it; after all, they have far more pressing matters to discuss, like Tate's mom's frail health or the money issues both families face. Whether it's Penny's dad's death or Tate's swimming (she's hoping for a college scholarship), every issue involves both of them, and their families often merge into one. As a new development in Tate's mom's health comes up, the girls are forced to be in each other's lives in an even more present way, and their feelings for each other can't stay bottled up. In this character-driven, slow-burn romance, both Penny and Tate are engaging voices, enriching the narrative with their strong and very different personalities. It's impossible to choose a favorite: Each one moves through life in her own way, informed by individual traumas and hopes, colliding with each other in an angst-y and ultimately satisfying way. Main characters read White by default.Well characterized and wholly entertaining. (Romance. 13-18)