^This is Alice Oseman’s debut novel and is about a girl named Tori, who is in Higgs, an all-girls grammar school, except for the last two years, which is co-ed. Tori meets a boy named Michael Holden and falls in love. Like most clichéd love stories, Tori is a huge pessimist and cynic, and Michael is an optimist who loves to read. This book may seem like a traditional love story, but it is very different from that, especially since it doubles as a mystery once Tori and Michael become involved in the search for ‘Solitaire’, a synonymous prankster causing big trouble in their school. Tori also has to deal with a lot of pressure, with friends and stress at home as her brother Charlie is anorexic and relapses in the novel.

There is also a graphic novel series, called Heartstopper, that tells the gay love story of Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson. Charlie is the younger brother of Tori Sprig, and thus, this series is connected to Solitaire. The first book is about Charlie developing a crush on senior jock Nick Nelson and Nick exploring his sexuality after falling for Charlie. This series is heavy on the romance but not in a very inappropriate way. However, there is some swearing and Charlie gets out of an emotionally abusive relationship in the first book. Charlie does have a few passionate kisses with Nick, but the romance ends there for the first few books.

My friend introduced me to Alice Oseman through Heartstopper, I liked both, but Solitaire is my favourite. Alice Oseman is not hiding the fact that the love story in Solitaire was made to resemble the love story between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. This is interesting since the main character has a similar dislike for Pride and Prejudice, like I do. I found these lines really entertaining and relatable, “I have established that I hate this book with a profound passion. It’s boring and cliched, and I constantly feel the urge to hold it over a lit match”.

I liked these books, especially the fact that they don’t just have happy stories. They have deeper characters with real flaws. For these reasons and some of the language and mature themes of mental health in relation to the LGBTQ+ community, I would say that this book is not good for kids under 13 but is definitely worth a read for older kids.