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Beatrice Quinn is just 16 years old but has already been finished with homeschooling for a couple of years. She’s ready to move on with life, which means her dream of attending Oxford University to study statistical genetics. She secretly applied and got accepted. But her parents don’t feel she’s ready to leave home; she’s not exactly had a normal childhood or teen life and has shied away from socializing with kids her age.
So Beatrice and her parents work out a deal. If she can accomplish a list of normal teen activities and milestones at a six-week theater camp across the country, they will allow her to attend Oxford. It sounds like it should be easy, but it seems like a high summit to climb for the math-inclined Beatrice. However, she’ll do anything to go to her dream school.
Her first hurdle is to make friends, and she accomplishes that; her roommate, Mia, and a boy in the costuming section of the camp take her under their wings. That’s particularly helpful since she comes up against the popular, and talented, and gorgeous, son of the camp owners. Almost everything about him rubs her the wrong way. And while the camp performs Shakespeare (and this year’s end-of-camp production is Romeo and Juliet), Nik is rather the Darcy to her Elizabeth. She knows how to be annoyed at someone, but not exactly how to handle being attracted to that someone as well.
As it becomes clear to everyone else that Nik and Beatrice have chemistry, it certainly isn’t clear to Bea (as her friends decide to call her). Why can’t relationships have simple rules to follow, like math?
Long Story Short follows Bea as she learns how to navigate the tricky territory of friendships and romance, as she comes out of her shell and finds new parts of herself she didn’t know could exist. It’s fun and sweet and features a nice romance, as well as plenty of Shakespeare quotes. A solid debut.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes 2 uses of strong language, around 25 instances of moderate profanity, about 25 uses of mild language, and about 15 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes a couple of scenes of kissing.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
