Bad Best Friend

When We Were Infinite

Rent a Boyfriend

Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child

Love Like Sky

Left Drowning

Anthem

I Am Not Alone

Meg has her entire life set up perfectly: her boyfriend Mason is sweet and supportive, she and her best friend Emily plan to head to Cornell together in the fall, and she even finds time to clock shifts phonebanking at a voter registration call center in her Philadelphia suburb. But everything changes when one of those calls connects her to a stranger from small-town Ohio, who gets under her skin from the moment he picks up the phone.

Colby is stuck in a rut, reeling from a family tragedy and working a dead-end job—unsure what his future holds, or if he even cares. The last thing he has time for is some privileged rich girl preaching the sanctity of the political process. So he says the worst thing he can think of and hangs up.

But things don’t end there.…

That night on the phone winds up being the first in a series of candid, sometimes heated, always surprising conversations that lead to a long-distance friendship and then—slowly—to something more. Across state lines and phone lines, Meg and Colby form a once-in-a-lifetime connection. But in the end, are they just too different to make it work?

You Say It First is a propulsive, layered novel about how sometimes the person who has the least in common with us can be the one who changes us most.

Discover Your Child's Next Read

Bad Best Friend

Rachel Vail, 2020

When We Were Infinite

Kelly Loy Gilbert, 2021

Rent a Boyfriend

Gloria Chao, 2020

Confessions of a So-Called Middle Child

Maria T. Lennon, 2013

Love Like Sky

Leslie C. Youngblood, 2018

Left Drowning

Jessica Park, 2013

Anthem

Deborah Wiles, 2010

I Am Not Alone

Francisco X. Stork, 2023