The Breakup Lists - Hardcover

Khorram, Adib

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593616391 ISBN 13: 9780593616390

Verlag: Dial Books, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Love is more complicated than “boy meets boy” in bestselling author Adib Khorram’s sharply funny new romantic comedy, set in the sordid world of high school theater

Jackson Ghasnavi is a lot of things—a techie, a smoothie afficionado, a totally not obsessive list-maker—but one thing he’s not is a romantic. And why would he be? He’s already had a front row seat to his parents’ divorce and picked up the pieces of his sister Jasmine’s broken heart one too many times.

No, Jackson is perfectly happy living life behind the scenes—he is a stage manager, after all—and keeping his romantic exploits limited to the breakup lists he makes for Jasmine, which chronicle every flaw (real or imagined) of her various and sundry exes.

Enter Liam: the senior swim captain turned leading man that neither of the Ghasnavi siblings stop thinking about. Not that Jackson has a crush, of course. Jasmine is already setting her sights on him and he’s probably—no, definitely—straight anyway.

So why does the idea of eventually writing a breakup list for him feel so impossible?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Adib Khorram lives in Kansas City, Missouri. When he isn't writing, you can probably find him trying to get his hundred-yard freestyle under a minute, learning to do a Lutz jump, or steeping a cup of oolong. His debut novel, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, earned several awards, including the William C. Morris Debut Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor. He is also the author of Darius the Great Deserves Better, Kiss and Tell, and the picture book Seven Special Somethings: A Nowruz Story.

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1

Even though I’m the Theatre Kid, my sister’s the dramatic one.
“Ugh,” Jasmine says as soon as she sees Nick, three lanes over in the parking lot. She rests her head against her car’s steering wheel, then jolts back up when her nose sets off the horn.
“You okay?”
Jasmine mutters something into the wheel. It’s got a pink fuzzy cover on it.
“I can’t hear you.”
She sits up, sighs, and faces me. “Sorry. It’s just hard seeing him.”
“It’s been months.”
“He broke my heart. You don’t know what it’s like.”
I’ve had my heart broken before. Maybe not as often or as hard as Jasmine, but still.
“Can you do his list again?”
“Jasmine . . .”
“Please?”
Nick is Jasmine’s m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶t̶h̶ latest ex-boyfriend. They dated all summer before Nick broke up with her because he “didn’t want to be tied down senior year.” But now she’s stuck sitting behind him in Pre-Calculus.
I’ve repeated his list so many times I’ve basically got it memorized. Still, I reach into my backpack, pull out my black stage manager binder, and flip to the end where I keep my lists. Given how many of them there are—and how often Jasmine needs them repeated—I have to keep them close.

Man Bun Nick’s Breakup List:
̶A̶ ̶c̶r̶u̶s̶t̶y̶ ̶s̶o̶c̶k̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶h̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶m̶
Too much Axe Body Spray
̶N̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶n̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶s̶m̶e̶l̶l̶
Smacks his lips at the beginning of each sentence
Doesn’t like pickles
̶A̶l̶w̶a̶y̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶o̶k̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶’̶s̶ ̶h̶o̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶f̶a̶r̶t̶
Bad man bun

It barely even qualifies as a bun. More like a little man garlic knot or something.
“Plus there’s the whole thing where he broke up with you,” I point out.
“Right. Right.”
“And you said you wanted to focus on yourself senior year.”
Jasmine gives me a sharp nod. She takes a deep breath, redoes her ponytail, and squares her shoulders. “Thanks, Jackson. What would I do without you?”
I slip my binder into my backpack and shrug it on, grab my shmoodies, and follow her into school.
The Riverstone High School Alumni Association r̶u̶i̶n̶e̶d̶ renovated the student entrance over the summer, replacing the rows of double doors set in red brick with an ugly white façade. Huge letters spell RIVERSTONE above the doors, but they’re the same white as the wall, so you can only see them by the shadows they cast. At night, they’re lit by blue LED backlight, even though Riverstone’s school colors are purple and gold.
It looks more like an IKEA than a high school.
Jasmine taps my shoulder. “You staying late?”
“Auditions today and tomorrow. Callbacks on Thursday.”
“All right. I’ll be in the pottery studio when you’re done.”
Jasmine settles her backpack on her right shoulder and marches off toward the A Hall. I head up the stairs to the D Hall and my locker, where Bowie is waiting for me.
Bowie Anderson has been my best friend since we were in first grade. I don’t know if it’s because we were the only s̶p̶i̶c̶y̶ non-white kids in our class (with Bowie being Black and me being half Iranian), or because even at six years old we were both already finding safety in other queer people, or because Bowie was one of the few people that never made fun of my hearing aids. But we’ve been more or less inseparable ever since, except that Bowie joined the Gender & Sexuality Alliance first year, while I joined Theatre.
“Hey, Jacks.” Bowie stuffs their jacket into their locker.
“Hey. I got your shmoodie.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” Bowie shakes the blender bottle vigorously, pops the lid, and takes a big swig. They’ve got dark brown skin, the kind that looks a little purple in a certain light, and short twists. Their lean neck bobs as they swallow, and they wipe their mouth with the back of their hand. “Mango?”
“And papaya. Dad got a huge bag at City Market.” Along with two giant watermelons, a bushel of guavas, and the biggest apples I’ve ever seen. Dad always buys way more fruit than we can actually eat in a week, which is why I started making smoothies for me and Bowie in the first place, though I pronounced it “shmoodies” once by accident and the name kind of stuck. Normally I get ̶p̶i̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶ ̶e̶m̶b̶a̶r̶r̶a̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ annoyed if people make fun of me for stuff like that, but Bowie’s allowed because I know they never mean it.
“How was practice?” I shake my own bottle and take a sip.
They groan and roll out their left shoulder. “Brutal. So many sprints.”
Bowie’s on the swim team. I’ve never liked swimming, since I hate getting my head wet, but I do like watching the sport. Bowie’s butterfly is a thing of beauty.
Plus, there are guys in Speedos.
I shut my locker and settle my backpack. Bowie looks behind me and cocks their chin. That usually means one thing.
Sure enough, Liam Coquyt is weaving through the hall, headed our way. He’s a senior, and the swim team captain. He’s tall and white and a̶n̶n̶o̶y̶i̶n̶g̶l̶y̶ ̶classically handsome, with azure eyes and a sharp jaw and cheeks that always look a tiny bit flushed.
He smiles and runs a hand through his raven hair, which is feathery from all the chlorine.
I’ve heard more than one rant from Bowie about how hard it is to take care of natural hair when you spend hours a day in the pool—not to mention the racism of swim cap manufacturers and the governing bodies of the sport—but Liam looks like he doesn’t even condition.
“Hey, Bowie. Hey, Jackson.” He reaches behind me to tuck in the tag on my T-shirt. His smooth fingertips graze the back of my neck.
He’s always doing that.
Liam nods at my shmoodie. “You got one of those for me?”
One time—one time!—Bowie was out sick, so I gave their shmoodie to Liam. And ever since, he keeps coming by my locker in the morning, hoping for another one.
It’s not like he’s a stranger: He and Bowie are friends, which means he’s sort-of friends with me too, but not on the level of getting shmoodies. That’s only for best friends.
Still, he comes by every day, smiling and tall ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶a̶n̶d̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ and sometimes I think about making an extra.
Just to be nice.
He stands by me, radiating body heat through his T-shirt, while he talks to Bowie about practice. I tune them out and drink my shmoodie; trying to follow conversations is exhausting, and I have to save my energy for class where I can. But then Liam flaps his...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dial Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593616391
• ISBN 13: 9780593616390
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Mayer, Paape, Voigt Kompakt Schallplatten GbR; https://www.kompakt.fm; ; Werder Str. 15-19; K�ln; 50672; Deutschland