by Leah Johnson
Recommended by Donalyn Miller
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This YA romance follows a Black queer teen determined to escape a prom-obsessed Midwestern town by winning a college scholarship. Voice is warm, candid, and often witty; the book's useful part is its blend of rom-com energy with honest attention to class, race, and ambition. Limitation: many emotional moments read broad and dialogue leans on familiar YA tropes, so readers wanting quieter depth or subtle characterization may find it surface-level. Best read for readers who want heart and social stakes more than slow realism.
This summary and audience guidance are AI-generated from the book's description and its recommendation history, last updated June 2026. Recommendations, quotes and sources elsewhere on this page come from published material and are not generated.
Liz Lighty has always believed she's too black, too poor, too awkward to shine in her small, rich, promobsessed midwestern town. But it's okay Liz has a plan that will get her out of Campbell, Indiana, forever: attend the uberelite Pennington College, play in their worldfamous orchestra, and become a doctor.But when the financial aid she was ...
Difficulty:hard
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View available editions on AmazonWhy recommended
Recommended by 2 sources and appears in Lesbian, LGBTQ, and Teen.
People and public figures who have recommended this book.
Recommendation proof is sourced from public posts, interviews, reading lists, and cited references.
Donalyn Miller
“2/ I?ve been reading a lot of romance this year because I need happy(ish) endings. Two I?ve enjoyed and recommended a lot are You Should See Me in a Crown by @byleahjohnson & You Had Me at Hola by @alexisdaria #bookaday”
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Consider Brooklynaire by Sarina Bowen.
“Brooklynaire is a glossy, steam-forward contemporary romance that pairs a wealthy hockey-team owner with the woman who manages his team; it trades slow-building complexity for immediate sexual tension and workplace chemistry. what works best is escapist pleasure—snappy dialogue, repeated heat scenes, and a tidy emotional resolution. Its main limitation is predictability and reliance on familiar billionaire/office tropes, with secondary characters often in service of the central romance rather than fully developed arcs.”
Each recommendation is collected from a public source — interviews, articles, or curated lists — and linked to its original URL. Books with many verifiable recommendations from respected people rank higher.
