Author: Jason June
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books / HarperTeen

From Jason June, author of the breakout teen debut novel Jay’s Gay Agenda, comes Out of the Blue, a stand-alone dual POV queer rom-com that asks if love is enough to change everything you’ve grown up believing. Perfect for fans of Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and Deep Blue by Jennifer Donnelly.

Crest is not excited to be on their Journey: the month-long sojourn on land all teen merfolk must undergo. The rules are simple: Help a human within one moon cycle and return to Pacifica to become an Elder—or fail and remain stuck on land forever. Crest is eager to get their Journey over and done with. Humans are disgusting. They’ve polluted the planet so much that there’s a floating island of trash that’s literally the size of a country.

In Los Angeles with a human body and a new name, Crest meets Sean, a human lifeguard whose boyfriend has recently dumped him. Crest agrees to help Sean make his ex jealous and win him back. But as the two spend more time together, and Crest’s perspective on humans begins to change, they’ll soon be torn between two worlds. And fake dating just might lead to real feelings . . .

This sophomore novel from Jason June dives into the many definitions of the word home and shows how love can help us find the truest versions of ourselves.

When I started reading Jason June's Out of the Blue, I first thought it was a bit unstructured and scattered since it has only character names as chapters, but I found it relatively easy to follow once I turned the first few pages. Jason presents a love story through alternate first-person narration accounts of two characters: Sean (a human who is into romantic comedies) and Crest/Ross (a merbabe and non-binary).

We are first introduced to the main human character, Sean, a teen in junior high who works at Santa Monica Beach Club, Los Angeles as a lifeguard. Sean is a control freak and constantly compares his romantic life to TV rom-com. We also get to know about Sean's boyfriend, Dominic, and Sean's plans with him, including cheering him, helping him in his film submission, dancing at prom, helping Dominic's mother throw his senior graduation party a few weeks later, then spending a summer together before moving to Cal State Northridge in September. A real-life rom-com.

However, Dominic breaks up with him after finding a new boyfriend, Miguel. The readers are then taken to a mythical world of merfolk, where we meet Crest, a merbabe, who is set to travel to the human world for one full moon cycle on land to help a human. The journey is a rite of passage that a merbabe must undergo to become an Elder of mer. Crest and other journeyfins are required to selflessly help any human within their one moon cycle stay on land or be stuck there forever.

On arriving in Los Angeles, Ross (Crest in Human world) meets with Sean and agrees to help him get back his boyfriend by using several ways, including fake dating with Sean, to show Dominic what he is missing. Sean and Ross get to know each other better, and soon their love becomes more robust. Sean is torn about whether to continue with the relationship and fight to have Dominic back, while Ross is torn between staying on land as a human and returning to his life as a mer in the ocean.

The author employs several styles in her writing and uses them well to achieve the desired effect. What particularly struck a chord with me is Jason's use of humor, for instance, when one of the SFG (Sunday Funday Gays) drops his mouth in an exaggerated O, slapping the side of his face and telling a friend, “Mary, it's about to go down.”

And Sean asking Dominic, “Hey, handsome. What's up?" when he is about to be dumped, and also Kavya asking Sean why he's out of breath after being dumped: “What's going on? Bee sting? Allergic reaction? Shall I administer CPR?” And finally, stretching at first before chasing off Dominic for breaking up with Sean. The use of humor throughout the novel makes it a romantic comedy, and readers will enjoy reading it.

Jason June outlines several thematic concerns, the highlight being same-sex relationships. Examples include relationships between Sean and Dominic, Sean and Ross, Ross and Bob (Crest and Drop), Dominic and Miguel, Kavya and Lucy Braunstein and her moms Avani and Caroline. The author delves deep into the LGBTQ+ topic by detailing sexual encounters between Sean, Dominic and Ross and what attracts them, from body shape to type of clothing. June goes further to explore the ways of the merfolk, where there is no gender binary (they are all nonbinary) and how they use only the pronouns they/them and no him/her and their type of sex known as scaling, which is different from the land.

Out of the Blue is well-paced and relatable, with some chapters following a normal person’s daily routine, starting from waking up, having breakfast, attending swimming lessons, school, having dinner and later trying to get some sleep while chatting and watching. I, however, found the end rather hasty, though it has a really nice ending.

If you are looking for a novel to read on the beach during summer or you are into romance, teen and mythical love stories, then Out of the Blue is a novel that you could have a lot of fun with.

- Weldon Ngetich