If Fast & Furious were 2 Teen Queer Girls…

Hi pals

This month’s blog post is for TBR And Beyond Book Tours, promoting and reviewing the book Furious by Jamie Pacton and Becca Podos. Not to be corny, but it was a bit of a wild ride…

Synopsis: After years racing go-karts and looking up to her mother, a celebrity Formula 1 racer, Jojo Emerson-Boyd should be starting her own racing career. But when she loses her mom in a tragic crash, Jojo’s future comes to a screeching halt. Now her dad won’t let her get a license, much less race. Instead, she’s stuck working at her grandmother’s mechanic shop in the sleepy small town of Dell’s Hollow.

But Jojo’s heart quickens when Motorcycle Girl Eliana “El” Blum shows up at the shop. El grew up on the motocross circuit sidelines, watching her sister and idol Maxine compete. When El mysteriously loses all contact with Max, she’s determined to find her, with her first clue leading straight to the mechanic shop, and to Jojo.

United by fate, the two quickly bond over Mario Kart showdowns and the Fast & Furious films. As their friendship shifts into something more, they’ll have to confront both their growing romance and the grief woven into their complicated families if they hope to chase down their dreams and make it across the finish line.

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Publishing date: June 11th, 2024

Rep: LGBTQI+

Content Warning: death of a parent, grief, trauma

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Where you can buy the book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Bookshop

the bookshop link is my own personal affiliate link. You will support me as a creator, the authors, and indie bookshops in the UK if you purchase this way.

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About the Authors

Jamie Pacton is a bestselling, award-winning Young Adult and Middle Grade author who lives in Wisconsin with her family. Her YA contemporary books include Furious, Lucky Girl and The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly. Her YA fantasy novels include, The Absinthe Underground and The Vermilion Emporium. Her adult fantasy romance debut, Homegrown Magic, is forthcoming from Del Rey in 2025.

Website | Instagram | Twitter | GoodReads

Becca Podos’ debut novel, The Mystery of Hollow Places (Balzer + Bray), was a Junior Library Guild Selection and a B&N Best YA Book of 2016. Her second book, Like Water (Balzer + Bray), won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Children’s and Young Adult. From Dust, a Flame (Balzer + Bray) was her latest release. Her next novel, FURIOUS, a contemporary YA romance co-written with Jamie Pacton, will be published by Page Street YA in June of 2024; their adult fantasy debut, HOMEGROWN MAGIC, will be published by Del Rey in 2025. Rebecca is an agent at the Rees Literary Agency in Boston by day.

Website | Instagram | GoodReads

My Review

Beginning to read the book, it’s not too complicated to grasp the basics of racing (bikes and cars, don’t ask me to be clearer, coz idk) but both authors do go into detail about their respective character’s specialties, which I think would satiate readers with more real-life interest or experience with racing. It’s not completely alienating to a reader with zero knowledge is what I’m saying!

I love the complexities of this cast of characters. You might think El and her family are a bit stiff and strict but as the novel explores El’s missing sister Max’s whereabouts, we see a wild side to El as she takes after her sister and feeds off Jojo’s enthusiasm for adventure. We also find, actually, the reasons Max left are a little complicated and involve their parents trying to shield El from certain things and not really knowing how to love her without being so overbearing.

Jojo has moved to town with her dad after her mum died suddenly in a race crash. They move into Grandma Jolene’s place, which is actually a liiiiiittle too small to fit everyone comfortably. We see Jojo’s dad struggling to parent with his grief, as well as suffering some post-traumatic like anxiety. Considering he’s a mechanic and used to work on DeeDee’s (Jojo’s mum) race cars as part of her team… he struggles to drive or leave the house. Jolene has some backstory with Dolly Parton, but post two husbands, she has been in a committed relationship with a lovely lady Florence and she spends most of the book… um… in Florence. I mean the place in Italy! So In a lot of ways, Jojo is pretty unsupervised but also under strict lock and key at the start of the narrative. Jojo… the race car driver, isn’t allowed to get her license to drive a normal car on the road, she’s been moved away from all her friends, and has dwindling hope of getting her dad to agree to sign the paperwork for her to apply for the prestigious training programme in London (UK this time)…

I loved learning about Jojo’s mum through the book, and about how DeeDee and Brian (AKA Dirty) met and fell in love and lived this extraordinary life as a star racer and mechanic partner. The travelling around to compete and getting Jojo into racing as a very young child… all reads as super dreamy, which makes it all the more devastating that we as readers never get to meet DeeDee or see her with her family. We get the privilege of watching Jojo pick up the pieces and rebuilding a life.

We have a lot of family drama, breaking rules, breaking… some laws, being a crappy friend, being a crappy girlfriend, and learning to be brave before things right themselves in the end. They might not all land where you expect, or how you expect… but eventually things work out. It’ll Do.

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Favourite Quotes

Final Rating

I rated the book 4 stars on GoodReads but I feel like MAYBE it’s more accurately a 3.75 for me personally. I enjoyed the overall plot and our complex main characters, but there were a few shortfalls for me personally.

I would have loved to see more interaction with the other cast members (though some of this becomes relevant to plot) and occasionally I found the wording a bit clunky. There was occasional repetitive phrasings, or responses that didn’t really make sense, but they were somewhat minor. Just something I’m nitpicky about as a reader.

It was really interesting to see how the Fast & Furious franchise can be loved by queer girls and women, as it has never really appealed to me or anyone I’ve met. It definitely gives you a good Alternate Universe vibe of what other groups of queer people are into, a world you could have possibly been a part of if somethings had gone differently for you in the past. And how the franchise can appeal to queer people who aren’t into cars, bikes, or racing.

I also think the book is well written for its audience of mid-to-late teens and maybe early 20s sapphics. I think the complexity of dealing with the grief of losing a parent, or losing a sister is an important topic and I think it was done well.

I’m glad I experienced this story, and did have a good time overall reading it. Once we got to a bit past the midway point, I both wanted to know what happened RIGHT NOW but also didn’t want to pick up the book and finish it coz then it would be over.

I believe I am the last on the book tour schedule but check out the other people on the tour and their thoughts: Book tour Schedule

~ Artie

they/them