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Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, prom-obsessed midwestern town. But it's okay -- Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uber-elite Pennington College, play in their world-famous orchestra, and become a doctor.
But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down . . . until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington.
The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She's smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?
(Summary provided by the publisher)
Leah Johnson was born and raised in central Indiana—a tried and true, lifelong Hoosier (and as you can perhaps imagine, much of her work now features more cornfields and soybeans than any one human has business writing about). She began her writing career with a spiral notebook full of short stories in Mrs. Peacock's fifth-grade class and could never quite bring herself to stop. That love of storytelling eventually carried her to Sarah Lawrence College for her MFA in fiction writing, and to Brooklyn to live amongst every other struggling writer.
Leah’s bestselling debut YA novel, You Should See Me in a Crown was the inaugural Reese's Book Club YA pick, a Stonewall Honor Book, a Junior Library Guild Selection, an ALA Rainbow List Top Ten selection, and was named one of Cosmopolitan's 15 Best Young Adult Books of 2020. Kirkus called Crown “[A] pitch-perfect rom-com… the queer prom romance you didn’t know you needed," and her mom called it “A real book!” It was featured on a number of Best of the Year lists including: Cosmopolitan, Amazon, Kirkus, Marie Claire, Publishers Weekly, and New York Public Library. The first installment of her debut middle grade series, Ellie Engle Saves Herself was sold in an eleven-house, seven-figure auction to Disney-Hyperion, and is slated for publication in spring 2023.
In 2020, Leah was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Flying Start, and her debut novel named an Indies Introduce pick by the American Booksellers Association. In 2021, USA Today listed Leah as one of 50 Must-Read Black YA Writers, and TIME named You Should See Me in a Crown one of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time. Leah is a Lambda Literary Emerging Writers Fellow whose work has been published or is forthcoming in BuzzFeed, Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar among others. When she’s not writing, you can find her at Loudmouth Books, her Indianapolis-based independent bookstore that specialized in highlighting the work of marginalized authors and uplifting banned or challenged books.
(Biography provided by the author)
