Nicola (Nic) Lancaster is a nerd. There, I said it. She’s a nerd. She likes school, she gets along with her parents, and she wants to be an archaeologist when she grows up. When she meets Battle, a southern quiet-type with long honey colored hair and some hidden family secrets, she’s suddenly faced with some feelings she can’t explain, because Battle is a girl. Thus begins “Empress of the World,” one of my favorite YA novels that I’ve read thus far.
The rest of the book chronicles Nic and Battles’ tentative, on-again off-again summer camp romance, with a lovely sense of humor and evocative descriptions of first love. Nic, the archaeologist in training, has trouble putting aside her penchant for analysis, which makes it hard for her to really fall in love; and Battle has trouble opening herself up to Nic’s constant soul searching, which makes it hard for her to really fall in love as well. Their ups and downs are colored by their ragtag group of nerd friends – Katrina, the computer programmer who comes up with matchmaking schemes; Isaac, who’s always brooding about his parents’ divorce; and Kenny, who can compose symphonies but can’t put a sentence together.
Aside from the sweet, no frills love story, and the friends I wish I had, my favorite thing about this book is it’s simplicity. Our heroines meet, banter a lot, fall in love, have a little bit of sex… and that’s it. No coming out drama, no angry parents, no cynicism from authority figures. I also really like the fact that for once, the nerds get to win. It’s not about the girl who was once popular and then shunned when she came out of the closet; It’s not about the girl who was always teased and then made it worse when she fell in love with that other girl. It’s about the self-proclaimed misfits, the ones who know that once they get to college, none of this will matter. It helps that it’s set at summer camp, a world in which its easy to forego the authority figures and the popularity contests, but it works, because for those of us who have been to academic/performing arts/visual arts summer camp, we know that it is indeed a place to leave high school behind.
Maybe I just like this book because I relate to it (not that I got that much action at camp), but in any case, I found it refreshing and just plain sweet.
Book talk hook: I would talk about how much Nic likes to analyze things, and leave the audience wondering whether the love story is going to work out. I might talk about the kind of magical place she depicts the summer camp to be.
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