Everyone Wants to Know

April 15, 2023
When your entire life is a public commodity, how do you figure out what's real? Influencers Nathan and Melissa Lo raised their family--16-year-old twins Honor and Atticus; high school senior Skye, and oldest siblings Wrangell and Jamison, now in their mid-20s--in the spotlight. There was their reality show, Lo and Behold, not to mention a podcast, a book, and more. They have a carefully crafted image: "wholesome and really cute, somehow both relatable and aspirational" and also "Asianish" (both Lo parents are biracial, Chinese and White). Married Jamison has a toddler and a profitable social media career. Menswear designer Wrangell distances himself from the family media circus. Skye leveraged her YouTube popularity to become a brand ambassador for Baylor University. Volleyball star Atticus stays centered and ignores the trolls. But Honor struggles with severe anxiety and obsessively reads comments about her family on celebrity gossip sites. After Nathan announces he's leaving Northern California for Brooklyn, the Los' world is rocked. When Honor's confidences to two lifelong best friends are leaked to People magazine, she's devastated. Melissa and the twins move, and Honor meets a boy who also hides behind walls; when another crisis strikes, she faces deep-seated fears of trusting again and navigates conflicts between being a good Lo and her own well-being. The superlative characterization and insights into complex, messy family dynamics make this a deeply humane story that readers will ponder and reflect upon. An emotional roller coaster grounded by achingly authentic characters. (Fiction. 13-18)

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Starred review from April 17, 2023
Via a white and Chinese American teen’s poetic narration, Gilbert (When We Were Infinite) delivers a binge-worthy drama starring a flawed, richly characterized family of TV personalities. Having grown up appearing on reality show Lo and Behold, 16-year-old Honor Lo, her twin brother Atticus, and their three older siblings learned to be wary of outsiders to protect the family brand and project an idealized version of their lives. Things upend when Honor’s parents separate. Her father moves to Brooklyn, while she, Atticus, and their mother move to a new Bay Area town, where her mom starts pressuring the twins to engage in brand campaigns like their influencer siblings. Distrustful of new classmates after a former friend betrays Honor to a gossip mag, and unsure if she wants to follow her siblings’ path, Honor throws herself into planning a reunifying family vacation. But as she grows closer to an enigmatic crush and bombshell revelations deepen family fractures, Honor must reevaluate her commitment to preserving her perceived reality. A fast-moving opening propels readers headfirst into the family’s spectacle-like drama, while sensitively handled themes surrounding “mixed-race trauma,” online privacy, and the consequences of cultivated personae round out the intensely emotional plot. Ages 12–up. Agent: Adriann Ranta Zurhellen, Folio Literary Management.

Starred review from June 1, 2023
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* For Honor Lo, family is all there is. The youngest of five siblings, she and her twin brother, Atticus, have spent most of their lives as public figures, first on TV as the subjects of their parents' hit reality series Lo and Behold and now as tabloid fodder. While their parents maintain momentum in careers where they're famous for being famous (think Chip and Joanna Gaines), and their elder siblings rake in the residuals as Instagram influencers, Honor and Atticus are finishing high school. Honor alone tries to protect her privacy and cherishes the time her family can be alone together, so when her parents shock social media by splitting up, her world is upended. When someone she thought she could trust leaks her personal thoughts to a news outlet, Honor tries to retreat into her family, but the secrets there are only just beginning to come to light. Gilbert (When We Were Infinite, 2021) has crafted a peculiarly affecting story: Honor, fierce in her love for her family, often can't see how her parents' narcissism has impacted her, and her first-person narration can be frustrating, though no less devastating as she struggles to connect with peers, a potential romantic interest, and herself. It's a delicate line that Gilbert walks with her characters here, and the book itself is the twist of a knife--but an exquisite one.

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Starred review from September 22, 2023

Gr 8 Up-Lo and Behold was a reality show that gave audiences an inside view of Honor Lo's family life. No longer on the air, the show still continues to influence their lives. Honor's parents are musicians and authors, older sisters Jamison and Skye are influencers, older brother Wrangell distances himself from all of it, and twin Atticus is a volleyball star. Honor believes, as her father has always told them, that family comes first, but when her parents separate, that belief is shattered. Honor desperately tries to keep her family together by planning their annual vacation, but it's a disaster; then Skye announces she has cancer, and the family rallies around her, even as online commenters speculate that Skye is making it up. Honor can't confide in her old friends, who she believes talked to the press, and has trouble trusting new ones, though she wants to trust Caden-a handsome boy at her new school whose dad is absent and whose mom is in rehab. Honor's first-person, present tense narration, as well as magazine articles, interviews, and online comments illuminate the difficulties of being famous: What do you show, and what do you try to keep private, especially when you are trying to present your "authentic" self? Who can you trust when you don't know what their motivations are? The latest from Gilbert thoughtfully explores how perfection is only surface deep. Readers won't be able to put down this absorbing novel. VERDICT An excellent first purchase for all YA collections.-Jenny Arch

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