February Queer Book of the Month: Whiteout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon.

Whiteout by Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon

@SPL: YA FIC White

The all-star team of Black writers who brought us Blackout in 2021 (six intertwined love stories set during a New York summer power outage) is back! Whiteout is a novel of Black teen love set against the backdrop of an Atlanta winter snowstorm.

Science enthusiast Stevie enlists the help of her friends to plan a Christmas surprise for her girlfriend Sola. But after ruining a coming-out dinner with Sola’s extended Nigerian family, Stevie has until midnight to win Sola back with a grand romantic gesture at Mercedez-Benz Stadium. Secretly, Stevie’s friends decide to stick to the original plan of gathering meaningful gifts for Sola to help the couple get back together. There’s just one problem – Atlanta is in the thick of a Snowpocalypse, which is grinding the city to a halt! Some of the friends are stuck in stalled traffic, others at the airport, mall, theatre, and aquarium, of all places. Can they all make it to the stadium in time for the plan to work?

This cozy teen romance has a large cast of characters and is written from multiple perspectives. Each chapter focuses on a different couple’s love story in the style of the movie Love Actually, but the Stevie-and-Sola-Surprise is the through line that connects them together. While Whiteout is driven mainly by character relationships, it is a quick read with lots of dialogue, text message and group chat exchanges, and even news and weather bulletins sprinkled throughout.

Readers and viewers of feel-good, wholesome romances and rom-coms will enjoy curling up with this book and cheering for their favourite couples to make it. Whiteout is available at SPL as an e-book and a hardcover book in our Young Adult section.

Alida Lemieux

Public Service Librarian

Stratford Public Library