An utterly charming YA romance perfect for fans of Elise Bryant and Leah Johnson. Leila is devastated when her high school boyfriend breaks up with her right before graduation, but when she gets paired with four unrequited crushes in the lead-up to her school's annual Last Chance Dance, she might just fall in love with someone new.
Leila is crushed when Dev, her boyfriend of four years, breaks up with her right before graduation. Just when she’s thinking she wasted her entire high school experience on a dead-end relationship, her best friend Bree reminds her that Last Chance Dance is just around the corner.
A high school tradition, the Last Chance Dance gives all the students one last opportunity to find love before they graduate. All Leila has to do is submit three unrequited crushes to the dance committee and if any of her crushes list her too, they’ll get matched. Presto: new relationship, just like that. To her utter amazement, Leila is matched with all three of her choices—and with someone she never expected, Tre Hillman, her chemistry partner and low-key nemesis.
Though at times skeptical, Leila embarks on her Last Chance Dance mission—trying out her matches and going on dates. If Dev wasn’t her true love—then maybe someone else is. She knows it’s definitely not Tre, even though he seems more and more determined to convince her he’s right for her.
But as graduation and the dance approaches, and each date seems to change her mind (and her heart)—Leila must figure out what—and who—she really wants. It’s her last chance, right?
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School Library Journal
Gr 7 Up-Smarting from her parents' divorce in eighth grade, Leila Bean thinks it must be fate when she meets cute Dev Rajan while shopping for schools supplies the summer before freshman year. Then after four years as their high school's most unproblematic couple, Leila is devastated when Dev decides to break up with her just before graduation, instead of taking their relationship long-distance during college. Hurting from the breakup and the confusion of being out of a committed relationship for essentially the first time, Leila is devastated that this will be her biggest memory from high school. Then best friend Bree reminds Leila that the school's Last Chance Dance is coming up, giving Leila a chance to match with three unrequited crushes (if the interest is mutual) and one algorithm-chosen wild card. No one is more surprised than Leila when she's matched with all of her crushes and her longtime nemesis. Going on dates with athletic Kai, activist Mason, and bookstagrammer Eva is fun, but the biggest surprise for Leila is that class clown Tre' (orchestrator of her biggest humiliation in eighth grade and possibly her entire life) might be an actual contender for a date and maybe even more. Leila and most of the characters in her Maryland school are Black; characters fall across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, including bisexual Eva and "masculine-presenting lesbian" Bree. VERDICT Wilson's breezy narrative and the inventive Last Chance Dance premise make a winning combination in this romance where Leila learns how to trust again while figuring out how to define herself outside of her relationship status.-Emma Carbone?(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.