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Kirkus Reviews Dec. 1, 2021, review of Marie, Racquel: OPHELIA AFTER ALL. p. NA.
The Horn Book Magazine vol. 98 no. 4 July-Aug., 2022. Brown, Nicholas A. , “Ophelia After All.”. p. 130.
WebOnlyReviewsSLJ vol. 69 no. 10 Oct. 6, 2023, Paz, Selenia. , “You Don’t Have a Shot.”. p. 1.
Publishers Weekly vol. 270 no. 14 Apr. 3, 2023, , “You Don’t Have a Shot.”. p. 71.
Kirkus Reviews Apr. 1, 2023, , “Marie, Racquel: YOU DON’T HAVE A SHOT.”. p. NA.
Publishers Weekly vol. 271 no. 3 Jan. 22, 2024, , “This Is Me Trying.”. p. 94.
Kirkus Reviews Feb. 15, 2024, , “Marie, Racquel: THIS IS ME TRYING.”. p. NA.
Racquel Marie grew up in Southern California where her passion for storytelling of all kinds was encouraged by her friends and big family. She received a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in gender and sexuality studies from the University of California, Irvine. There is, unexpectedly, a C in her first name. She is the author of Ophelia After All, You Don’t Have a Shot, and This Is Me Trying.
Q&A: Racquel Marie, Author of ‘This Is Me Trying’
Elise Dumpleton·Writers Corner·April 15, 2024·3 min read
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We chat with author Racquel Marie about This Is Me Trying, which is a profound and tender YA contemporary novel exploring grief, love, and guilt.
Hi, Racquel! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m Racquel Marie (she/her/hers), author of the YA contemporaries, OPHELIA AFTER ALL, YOU DON’T HAVE A SHOT, and now THIS IS ME TRYING! I love writing about messy queer characters, grief, growing up, and complicated relationships fueled by love.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I was in kindergarten when I first declared I wanted to be an author when I grew up, so this love has been around for a while. My family always fostered an appreciation for storytelling through bookstore trips, games of make believe, and our family histories, so it’s unsurprising that the love stuck and grew. In elementary school, I started writing my own books and haven’t found any reason to stop since then.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
The first book you ever remember reading: probably something like HUNGRY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR or GOODNIGHT MOON
The one that made you want to become an author: CRACKED UP TO BE by Courtney Summers
The one that you can’t stop thinking about: CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Your latest novel, This Is Me Trying, is out April 16th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Grief, hopeful, introspective, bittersweet, forgiveness
What can readers expect?
This story follows two estranged childhood best friends, Beatriz and Santiago, grieving their mutual best friend who died several years prior to the start of the book from suicide, so there’s a lot of heartbreak and angst in these pages. But I also infused the story with plenty of hope and love, as well as my usual assortment of bantering friend groups, dynamic family relationships, and yearning main characters.
Where did the inspiration for This Is Me Trying come from?
I’ve been trying to write this book since I was fourteen, so understandably a lot of the plot and themes were inspired by things happening around me at that age. I continued with the concept for so many years because I understood personally how much I could’ve used a book like this during my teen years, and because it still felt so relevant to me when I sat down to write this iteration of the story at twenty three.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I had a lot of fun writing a book in multiple point of views for the first time. The book is told through both Beatriz and Santiago’s perspectives, so fine-tuning their voices and deciding what scenes would be in whose mind was really engaging craft-wise. Getting to write my main characters from each other’s perspective was especially interesting because it allowed me to build them up for the reader in ways I hadn’t explored before.
With this book tackling mental health and grief, how did you approach this?
I already consider myself someone whose books will always be more hopeful than hurtful, but especially with this book being for teens, I felt an immense responsibility to tackle these issues with care and delicacy. I spent a lot of time talking over elements of the story with people in my life—my psychologist, my editor, friends, family—to be sure I was doing my due diligence. There’s also an author’s note at the start of the story that explains some of the content, as a little loving head’s up for any readers who might need that.
See also
Q&A: Dahlia Adler and Jennifer Iacopelli, Co-Editors of ‘Out of Our League’
What do you hope your readers take away from This Is Me Trying?
I hope readers leave this book with a sense of comfort in their hearts. That they are not the only person who has ever felt the depth of pain they have, that their grief will be there forever but so will the love, that there is good to come even on days it feels impossible. Ultimately, I hope that hope itself is the thing they take away. And while I’m not naïve enough to believe this book will cure anyone’s mental illness, I do hope it can at least help anyone struggling by opening up a conversation about that.
What’s next for you?
My next book, IF WE SURVIVE THIS, comes out in 2025! It’s a YA horror about a teenage girl leading her brother and a small group of survivors to an isolated cabin months into a rabies-induced zombie apocalypse, with flashbacks to her family’s last trip to that same cabin about a year and a half ago. It’s another exploration of grief and queerness and mental illness, but still a bit of a genre shift for me, so very exciting and daunting! And certainly gorey.
Lastly, are there any book releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
Books I’ve already read but can’t wait to hold in my hands include: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS by Zoe Hana Mikuta and TRUE LOVE AND OTHER IMPOSSIBLE ODDS by Christina Li. And books that I am so excited to get to read include THE BLONDE DIES FIRST by Joelle Wellington, VILEST THINGS by Chloe Gong, LADY MACBETH by Ava Reid, and IF I LOVED YOU LESS by Aamna Qureshi.
Q & A with Racquel Marie
By Iyana Jones | Mar 28, 2024
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In her third YA novel, This Is Me Trying, Racquel Marie addresses the weight of teen suicide, immeasurable grief, and the messiness of coping. Teens Beatriz and Santiago haven’t spoken since their best friend Bryce died by suicide and Santiago moved away without a goodbye. When Santi returns to their Vermont hometown for their final year of high school, their reunion reopens old wounds as the pair work through the loss of their friendship, their complicated feelings around Bryce, and what comes next. In a conversation with PW, Marie discussed the responsibility in writing about teen suicide, misconceptions around healing, and her titular Taylor Swift reference.
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Your first two novels, Ophelia After All and You Don’t Have a Shot, are tonally different from This Is Me Trying. What made you feel ready to tackle a novel with heavier themes?
I definitely agree it’s a bit of a shift. Part of it was that in my personal life, I had experienced a lot of grief. I’ve talked openly online and in my acknowledgments about the fact that I lost my mom unexpectedly in 2021. I was sitting with a lot of heavy emotions about grief and the state of the world as well. It felt like a moment in time in which I trusted myself to be able to handle writing about heavier subject matter, knowing that I could still infuse it with hope as well. Especially when you’re writing for teenagers, I think that’s important. I don’t imagine myself ever writing a particularly "capital S Sad Book”
What was your preparation for this project like? Did previous works surrounding suicide help you understand what you did and didn’t want to do with your own book?
That was something I felt very seriously about because some media in the past portrays it in a way that can start to sensationalize or romanticize the concept of teen suicide. One book that I looked to that shifted my mindset was The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R Pan. That was the first time I had seen the wording “dies by suicide” and not “committing suicide,” as if it’s a crime or these aggressive wordings. It felt like a much more respectful approach to it. There’s an author’s note that talks about writing it that way [and] identifies it more as this being an element of mental illness and something that has caused somebody’s death, but not some type of moral failing. I also have worked with a therapist myself, who I spoke with about making sure I was responsible and respectful about this. And I spoke with a lot of friends of mine who’ve dealt with this in their teens and into adulthood. I felt a heavy responsibility in approaching the subject matter.
How did you approach writing about a character who is physically absent but kept present via memories?
I wanted to give the reader a sense of who Bryce was and what his relationships were to these characters. But I also wanted to be very delicate as to not make it feel like he was too present. I didn’t want to fall into a trap that some media portrays of teenage suicide where it makes it seem like you can still be around in the narrative after someone has died. I wanted to make it very clear that this is a permanent thing. If someone dies by suicide, they don’t get to be present in the narrative in an intentional, super active way. I wanted to keep his memory very rooted in how these characters perceived him and show that there was always going to be this absence of him. I wanted the reader to always feel like you never quite got a full understanding of who he was and what he felt because he is gone. That is the tragedy.
Many of the characters in the novel have faced loss and grief before, but Santiago notes that losing someone to suicide is a completely different experience. Can you talk about that concept?
When anyone dies, an immediate reaction is, what if things could have been different? I think [with] suicide it is even more so because everyone takes on this personal responsibility, “if I could have said this or done that, I could have changed things.” And it is complicated because it simultaneously is no one’s fault, and it also is something that needs to be addressed more candidly. There need to be more open and honest conversations about suicide and suicidal ideation, so that people can pursue help. It was an interesting thing to play with. If someone has a car accident or dies of cancer, it can have this element of sometimes things just happen. But suicide is something that feels so particular and intentional. It’s difficult to make peace with knowing that that choice could have been different. I wanted the characters to sit with that feeling, while also not accidentally projecting this idea that everyone messed up and it was everyone’s fault.
On social media, you’ve described this project as a combination of Taylor Swift’s “This Is Me Trying” and “Chinese Satellite” by Phoebe Bridgers. How do those two songs relate to the themes of this book?
I think this is the first time I’m directly responding to the Taylor Swift of it all! The phrase “this is me trying” gets to the root of so many of the characters’ experiences, which is that it may look like they’re not doing anything from the outside, but this is them trying. It may look like they’re just wallowing in their grief. It may look like they’re not giving any effort, but they are giving it their best attempt at existing. And “Chinese Satellite” is a great song regarding grief and that paradox of wanting to believe you’re going to see this person again someday, but not knowing if that’s true. If you don’t have that to hold on to, what do you do from there? I think both of those songs really get to the core of philosophizing about grief and the future and what it means to sit in difficult circumstances and still be giving it your best shot and knowing that everybody around you thinks you should be doing better.
Did writing this book help you come to any new understanding around navigating loss?
A little bit. I started writing this iteration of the book in the aftermath of my mom’s death. It has been about two and a half years, which is the same space the characters have been [in]. So I got to experience in real time the way that people expect you to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and start moving on. One of the things that I’ve learned both from working on the book and in my personal experience is that people have this notion of grief being a temporary thing, or being something that you are just supposed to move on from, or it gets better, or it feels different. It can feel different, but it is always going to be something that you carry with you. Compared to my first two books—where even if there were sad moments, by the end we could maybe get a happier ending—at the end of this book, someone was still going to be dead and [the characters] were still going to have this loss in their life. That is difficult to sit with when you’re grieving and difficult for people who haven’t lost someone to realize. But I wanted to present the idea that yes, this is something you’re going to carry with you forever, and it probably is going to suck for the rest of your life to some degree. It doesn’t mean there isn’t still good ahead as well. It can coexist alongside all the good too.
This Is Me Trying by Racquel Marie. Feiwel and Friends, $19.99 Apr. 16 ISBN 978-1-250-89138-9
Q&A With Racquel Marie, Ophelia After All
February 8, 2022 by JoAnn Yao
ophelia after all header
By Nithya Ramcharan
Today we’re pleased to welcome Racquel Marie to the WNDB blog to discuss Ophelia After All, out today, February 8, 2022!
Ophelia Rojas knows what she likes: her best friends, Cuban food, rose-gardening, and boys – way too many boys. Her friends and parents make fun of her endless stream of crushes, but Ophelia is a romantic at heart. She couldn’t change, even if she wanted to.
So when she finds herself thinking more about cute, quiet Talia Sanchez than the loss of a perfect prom with her ex-boyfriend, seeds of doubt take root in Ophelia’s firm image of herself. Add to that the impending end of high school and the fracturing of her once-solid friend group, and things are spiraling a little out of control. But the course of love—and sexuality—never did run smooth. As her secrets begin to unravel, Ophelia must make a choice between clinging to the fantasy version of herself she’s always imagined or upending everyone’s expectations to rediscover who she really is, after all.
ophelia after all book cover
Ophelia and her friends are in their senior year and preoccupied with their futures, but are also consumed by their school’s upcoming prom. Is there any reason why you chose prom to be such a crucial part of the story?
Because Ophelia is such a romantic, I loved the idea of the story being built around an extremely romanticized event like prom. Traditionally, prom is a formal celebration for high schoolers before they graduate and “become real adults” that is wrapped up in a lot of heteronormative expectations: guys ask girls, girls wear dresses, boys wear suits, there is a Prom King and Prom Queen, virginities are lost, etc. etc. Having Ophelia and her friends’ lives temporarily shaped around prom while they navigate questions of sexuality and romance felt fitting, especially since so much of what they navigate is in opposition to many of those traditional expectations.
What was it like diving into the mind of a high schooler thinking about her future and questioning her sexuality? Did you conduct any research to craft this perspective?
Ophelia’s experience of questioning her sexuality as a teenager was actually heavily shaped by my own queer journey! At the start of my senior year, I wrote down on a slip of paper that I wasn’t straight, then I tucked it away and told myself I’d forget about it. (Spoiler: I did not.) I started writing Ophelia After All a couple years later, right after I turned nineteen, because I wanted to explore all the feelings I’d been suppressing around my sexuality. Though our experiences definitely differ in places, writing through her perspective helped me with my processing and growth, bringing me to a present where I am very comfortable and proud of my queerness. So her voice came pretty naturally to me, both because of our closeness in age and because of our shared questioning journeys.
Ophelia’s hobby of gardening (specifically roses) is very unique. What is the significance behind her passion for horticulture?
I named Ophelia after the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet—who is heavily associated with floral imagery—but early drafts of Ophelia After All didn’t depict Ophelia as a gardener at all. I got the idea for her hobby and love of flowers randomly during a lecture in college as a way of building on her character and interests, with the additional fun of it being an intentional play on her namesake. As the story developed, I loved getting to use her garden as a vehicle to show her current emotional state, with the tender, heavily romanticized roses representing her heart and relationships that she can either nurture, or let wilt away.
What is the significance of Ophelia’s name being derived from Shakespeare’s Hamlet?
Originally, my Ophelia was named after Ophelia from Hamlet because I was studying the play in college while first drafting this book. I was going through a difficult time in my life when an anxiety-inducing—but ultimately very fun—experience arose where I had to portray Ophelia during her infamous “mad scene” in front of my whole class. That one presentation had a big impact on me realizing I was capable of doing, and even enjoying, things that terrified me, and at that moment there was nothing more terrifying than exploring the queerness I’d buried away for so long. It felt fitting then to name my character facing the same fears as me after the Shakespearean character who helped me face some of my own.
In the context of the book, Ophelia’s namesake also plays into her struggle with romance, as both my and Shakespeare’s Ophelia feel trapped in unreciprocated love and suffocated by everyone’s expectations.
ophelia after all quote
Ophelia’s friend group comes from varied backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, sexuality, and personal interests. How did you craft their characters and why do you think it is important to see this representation?
When I picture a group of friends, I picture it being comprised of people from an assortment of various backgrounds, so the diversity in Ophelia’s friend group came organically when I was initially drafting. However, it was vital to me that I worked with sensitivity readers and talked closely with friends who shared aspects of certain characters’ identities throughout the process of working on this book to be sure I wouldn’t do harm. I feel strongly about representing diverse casts of characters in my books because it’s a reflection of how I see the world, but that should never come at the expense of poor representation. I’ve really enjoyed getting to see early readers already connecting with and feeling seen by these characters I love so much, and I hope to continue writing books that allow that.
How do you see yourself represented in Ophelia? Do you have any hobbies as distinct as Ophelia and her friends’?
I definitely see myself represented in Ophelia when it comes to being a queer, Latina, hopeless romantic and a teenager who felt like she existed permanently on the outskirts of romantic and sexual experiences. Part of the fun of writing this book was getting to play around with the subjects of relationships and love, while still affirming the notion that there is no set timeline on when and how you have to experience those things. It’s something I definitely needed to hear at Ophelia’s age and I’m glad I can represent my younger self this way.
I do not share Ophelia’s green thumb, Talia’s love of math, Sammie’s love of history, Lindsay’s athleticism, Wesley or Zaq’s artistic ability, or Agatha’s fashion sense, but I do love dabbling in digital art, video editing, singing, beauty and special effects makeup, playing ukulele and piano, sewing, and, of course, writing.
Are there any projects you’re currently working on? If so, could you tell us more about them?
I’m actually revising a lot of projects at the moment! Our Shadows Have Claws is a YA horror anthology with all Latine authors, edited by Amparo Ortiz and Yamile Saied Méndez, that comes out in the fall of 2022 and features my short story about the Colombian succubus myth, La Patasola. I’m also revising my sophomore book, You Don’t Have a Shot, which is set for 2023 and follows rival soccer captains who are forced to team up to salvage both of their athletic futures. Sapphic rivals to lovers!!! And lastly, also in 2023, Study Break is an anthology written by all gen Z authors with interconnected stories taking place at one fictional college! So I’ve been very, very busy this year, but I’m already working on what could hopefully become my 2024 book!
Do you have any recommendations for those readers who loved Ophelia and her friends?
Yes! Some YA contemporaries/romances I absolutely love and think fans of Ophelia After All would too are: How To Excavate A Heart by Jake Maia Arlow (Jewish sapphics falling in love around Christmastime), Our Way Back To Always by Nina Moreno (Latine childhood best friends reuniting to complete their senior year bucket list), Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa (gay Tejano accidentally comes out, then falls in love with a boy he meets on Twitter), The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Philippe (coming of age about a Black French Canadian teen who reluctantly relocates to Texas) and Counting Down With You by Tashie Bhuiyan (fake dating between an anxious bookworm and her school’s resident bad boy).
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racquel marie headshotRacquel Marie grew up in Southern California where her passion for storytelling of all kinds was encouraged by her friends and big family. She received a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in gender and sexuality studies from the University of California, Irvine. Racquel primarily writes YA contemporaries starring queer Latine characters like herself. When not writing or reading, she loves practicing beauty and special effects makeup, watching and producing YouTube videos, and teaching herself to play ukulele in spite of her extremely long nails. You can learn more about her writing and love of books through her Twitter, @blondewithab00k. Ophelia After All is her debut.
Our Friend is Here! Latinx Heritage Month – An Interview with Racquel Marie, Author of Ophelia After All; On Writing While Queer, Crafting Characters, and Author Dreams
SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 SKYE (SHUURENS)2 COMMENTS
Our Friend is Here! Latinx Heritage Month – An Interview with Racquel Marie, Author of Ophelia After All; On Writing While Queer, Crafting Characters, and Author Dreams.
Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.
Our Friend is Here: Latinx Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where between September 15th and October 15th, Latinx authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being Latinx and Latinx books. Find the introduction post for Latinx Heritage Month at The Quiet Pond here.
Hello friends, and welcome back to Latinx Heritage Month at the Pond! Today’s guest is so very special; she’s an upcoming author and a well-loved bookish content creator in the community! I’m so thrilled to welcome Racquel Marie (also known as Rocky at Blonde with a Book!) to the blog today to talk about her forthcoming 2022 YA debut, Ophelia After All — a contemporary full of flowers and roses, Latine cultural heritage, and questioning queer girls blossoming into the people they want to be.
It is such an honor to have Racquel visiting us today, especially as a golden retriever with snazzy red combat boots and long lashes! Here she is in all her bright and fluffy glory.
Our conversation with Racquel today discusses topics like the initial spark behind Ophelia After All, Racquel’s own experience growing up in a mixed-cultural family and questioning her sexuality, as well as her faraway author dreams (that aren’t so faraway anymore)! It was so fascinating to peek behind the curtain a little at the writing process and inspiration behind Racquel’s writing, and I really hope that reading it gets you excited for Ophelia’s adventures too, because it sure did for me!
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But before we jump straight to the interview, I’d also love to first introduce you to both Racquel’s booktube channel, and the blurb of her book!
RACQUEL’S BOOKTUBE CHANNEL: BLONDE WITH A BOOK
Racquel is such a force of positivity in the bookish community! Her booktube channel Blonde with a Book is positively filled with charming content, such as her anticipated books for the second half of 2020, and author interviews with icons such as Claribel A. Ortega and Brittany Cavallaro! On topic today, she also made a lovely video about her book and the journey it took to get it to where it is now:
And of course, this introduction wouldn’t be complete without the actual, bona fide book announcement, which we also covered in a previous issue of our book news post! But honestly it’s exciting enough that you should see it again:
Every time I read this premise, my heart skips a beat all over again. I’m so soft for books about queer girls, friends. 2022 is still (unfortunately) a while away, but as we patiently await the release date, you can add the book to Goodreads to keep track of it in your TBR shelf!
Now onwards to the lovely interview! I hope our conversation inspires you and makes you feel seen, friend, wherever you need it in your life today.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: RACQUEL MARIE
Sprout: Hello Racquel! Thank you so much for joining us today here at the Pond! For anyone just now discovering your work, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Racquel: Hi! I’m so happy to be here! I’m Racquel, also known by my nickname, Rocky. I’m a queer Latina—first generation Colombian and Cuban American—2022 debut YA author and BookTuber. Outside of writing and talking about books, I love makeup, singing, video games, badly playing the ukulele, and have recently been getting into digital art.
Sprout: Where did the spark that grew into Ophelia After All come from? What kept you coming back to the story again and again throughout the writing process?
Racquel: OPHELIA AFTER ALL started off as a 2017 NaNoWriMo project, with the original opening line: “I’m going to be honest, I sort of miss being straight.” At the time, I was nineteen and feeling precisely that—confusion and exhaustion over finally accepting a truth I’d been batting away for a few years at that point: I was definitely not straight. I didn’t have a plan for Ophelia’s story; I just knew I needed to get those feelings out of me somehow. I continued coming back to this book time and time again even though I felt genuinely sick with anxiety at times over writing something so vulnerable and personal, and feared there wouldn’t be market interest in a questioning/coming out story, because I needed a story like this when I was a teenager. I mean, I can’t say for sure, but I doubt I’d be as confident in and proud of my queerness as I am now if not for the years I spent working on OPHELIA. I lived vicariously through her experiences and, in a way, got to sit down with an alternate version of my teenage self, hold her hand, and say, “It’s going to be okay. Trust me.” I hope to extend that comfort to my future readers as well.
Sprout: You’ve mentioned that this book grew out of your own experience working through your sexuality and mental health as a teenager! How has your personal journey with your queer and Latinx identity shaped the characters in Ophelia?
Racquel: When I started writing OPHELIA, I was taking a lot of college classes dealing with race, ethnicity, and colonization that prompted me to open up more conversations about my Latine heritage with my family. Like I said earlier, I’d also finally begun recognizing that my attraction to people wasn’t limited to men and actually extended to anyone, regardless of gender. It was a period of my life that involved so much self-exploration that my ethnicity and sexuality became deeply intertwined concepts in my mind; with neither fitting neatly into a conventional binary.
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I almost feel like Ophelia and I gave each other permission to touch parts of our identities that we sometimes feared weren’t ours to touch. Over the years, I was able to add more nuance and dimension to her journey with her sexuality as someone now living as a confidently queer young woman. And when I was Ophelia’s age, I struggled to connect with my heritages because I came from such a mixed cultural bag, with my dad being Irish and German American and my mom being Colombian and Cuban. Writing Ophelia with a similar ethnic background gave me an outlet to share pride over our Cuban heritage, frequent Spanglish, and love of papas rellenas, nudging me to stop self-gate-keeping on all fronts and focus on celebrating where my family comes from instead.
Sprout: Ultimately, what are you hoping young readers will take away from this story?
Racquel: I hope young readers ultimately learn that they don’t need permission to change or question who they are. When you’re on the precipice of adulthood, it feels like you’re expected to know exactly who and what you are and will be for the rest of your life. But that’s just not reality. No matter how old or young you are, you’re always going to be discovering new parts of yourself. Sometimes it’s as simple as finding a new hobby or interest, sometimes it’s as nuanced as realizing your sexuality or gender isn’t what you always thought it was. Regardless of what the change or answer is, you’re allowed to check in with yourself and make changes that’ll result in an ultimately happier life, even if they don’t fit the expectations or standards of others. Sometimes it’s not always safe or comfortable to make those changes outwardly, so even if you’re the only one who knows who you truly are, there is immense courage and beauty in that.
Sprout: I know publication is still some time away, but I’d love to peek behind the curtain a little on your publishing journey — how has your book grown and changed throughout this entire process so far?
Racquel: There were a few characters and side-plots that got cut from OPHELIA over the years (alongside my precious prologue that contained the original first line), but one of the biggest changes was how Ophelia grew to differ from me. She was always a Cuban and Irish American teenager who questioned her sexuality. But while the current version of her wears pastel floral print, sparkly makeup, and is obsessed with rose gardening, the original Ophelia had bleached her dark hair blonde, was decked out in piercings, and dressed like a slightly goth hipster. So she was essentially me.
She was always named after Ophelia from the famous Shakespearean play, Hamlet (which is an entire other story), but it wasn’t until I had the idea during an English class, months after finishing my first draft, to make her a gardener who loved all things floral that Ophelia blossomed into her own person. Giving her a passion for flowers not only gave her name more meaning, it gave her something that was entirely her own—and not at all mine. When I started seeing her as a watery reflection of myself rather than a perfect, clear mirrored image, I was able to push myself towards making productive changes to her character and life that better fit her story and made for an overall more interesting book.
Sprout: A lot of us here also know you as a booktuber as well! Can you tell us a little about how being in the community first as a reader/bookish content creator has shaped your writing journey?
Racquel: Honestly, it feels really cool that I’m so involved in the reader/content creator side of the book community as well as the author side now. I critically analyzed books for fun for years, so I became sharper at critiquing my own work during revisions by asking myself what the “Rocky/Blonde With A Book” side of me would have to say about the “Racquel Marie” side of me’s work when I felt myself getting lazy.
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Even now, it’s surreal to think about all the authors who I idolized for years who’ve since congratulated me on OPHELIA’s publishing news or become people I consider friends. Going from being someone tweeting about looking forward to other peoples’ books to someone on the receiving end of those tweets is just mind-blowingly amazing, and I’m so grateful for the support I’ve received from all sides of the bookish community.
Sprout: Okay, looking forward to the future a little: what’s your wildest pie-in-the-sky writing dream?
Racquel: Oooo! Honestly, the past few years have been so laser focused on just getting an initial book deal, I haven’t let myself dream too wildly into the future. I’d just love the chance to have a lifelong career in writing, with the freedom to dip my toes in as many artistic pools as possible. I have a passion-project-New-Adult-paranormal-cult series I’d die to get to write and publish one day, and my dream IP would be writing for the Life Is Strange franchise. But for the most part I’m taking it one step at a time, starting to draft a new YA contemporary (think: Latina soccer gays) and working on a collaborative project I can hopefully talk more about soon!
Though I will say, I would probably implode on the spot if someone ever got a tattoo based off of one of my books. Or, better yet, a tattoo directly quoting my writing. My senior quote was something I wrote myself: “I hope to write something worth quoting someday,” so I think that would pretty much make my life.
Sprout: Before we close, do you have any advice for other aspiring writers out there in the trenches of their various WIPs?
Racquel: Don’t self-reject out of fear! I don’t think anyone but my parents know this, but I almost didn’t query my agent, the wonderful Thao Le, even after she liked my pitch during PitMad 2019. I looked at her client list, then at my book, and thought there is no way she’ll want me. I figured I’d save myself the heartbreak of rejection. But I knew I’d have to get used to disappointment in this industry, so I sent my query anyways. And look where we are now! It’s easy to get caught up in a game of comparing yourself/your work to others, but you have to be your own biggest fan and advocate first and foremost.
Oh and the advice that you have to write every day to be a writer is utter clownery. Art is not One-Size-Fits-All! Life is busy and chaotic and writing is work, even when it comes from a place of passion. Be kind to yourself and set realistic goals.
And bad first drafts are better than no first drafts! (still learning this one myself!)
About the Author
Racquel Marie grew up in Southern California where her passion for storytelling of all kinds was encouraged by her friends and big family. She received a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University of California, Irvine. Racquel primarily writes YA contemporaries starring queer Latine characters like herself. When not writing or reading, she loves practicing beauty and special effects makeup, watching and producing YouTube videos, and teaching herself to play ukulele in spite of her extremely long nails. You can learn more about her writing and love of books through her Twitter, @blondewithab00k and her YouTube, Blonde With A Book.
Marie, Racquel OPHELIA AFTER ALL Feiwel & Friends (Teen None) $17.99 2, 8 ISBN: 978-1-250-79730-8
It's the end of senior year, and Ophelia Rojas is overwhelmed by the many changes charging through her life.
Ophelia--17, hopeless romantic, fittingly flower-obsessed, Cuban and White--knows that the future is coming on fast. Soon she'll graduate and start college, moving away from parents she actually gets along with, best friends she shares everything with, and even her beloved rose garden. With so much of her life in flux, she wishes some routines would stay intact. Then Talia--Black and Puerto Rican, quietly intelligent--starts occupying all her thoughts, and she's not sure what that means. The novel is rich in secondary characters, all of whom learn and struggle together in a messy web of teenage friendships. There's Agatha (Black, plus-sized fashionista), on her way to design school and determined to succeed; Lindsay (White, popular as all get out), juggling the expectations of two lovestruck boys and an entire presumptuous world; Sammie (Pakistani American and Muslim, jester and boy next door), whose emotions are fast outgrowing his usual devil-may-care attitude; and Wesley (Korean American) and Zaquariah (Black), both artists navigating their own growing pains. Marie writes Ophelia and her friends through the hurdles and heartaches of senior spring with charm and insight, giving each character complexity and their varied cultural experiences the space, consideration, and depth they deserve.
A feel-good and effortlessly inclusive coming-of-age story that deftly captures the aching tension of queer adolescence. (Fiction. 13-18)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Marie, Racquel: OPHELIA AFTER ALL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A684108434/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=408fe4f4. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
Ophelia After All
by Racquel Marie
High School Feiwel 352 pp. g
2/22 978-1-250-79730-8 $17.99
e-book ed. 978-1-250-79729-2 $10.99
All is well in high-achieving, botany-obsessed, high-school senior Ophelia Rojas's world until she gets caught up in friend drama over prom and recognizes her romantic interest in a new female friend. True to her namesake from Hamlet, Ophelia (whose mother is an English literature professor) is gradually overcome by social and internal pressures. She fears that her support system will fall apart if she does not live up to the heteronormative persona that her friends and family assume of her. Ophelia discovers her potential for growth as her relationships evolve and she becomes vulnerable with those she loves. Marie's debut YA novel adds more welcome queer and multiracial Latinx leading characters to the teens-coming-of-age canon. The novel comfortably alternates between contemplative inner monologues and busy, playful scenes featuring Ophelia's family or friend group. While this engaging story will especially resonate with individuals who share the protagonist's identities and who seek to see themselves reflected in the stories they read, Ophelia is highly relatable as a soulful and eccentric individual who tries to find her way and reclaim a clear sense of who she is.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Brown, Nicholas A. "Ophelia After All." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 98, no. 4, July-Aug. 2022, p. 130. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A711168160/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=56f79680. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
MARIE, Racquel. You Don't Have a Shot. 384p. Feiwel & Friends. May 2023. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9781250836298.
Gr 8 Up—After her mother's death, Valentina Castillo-Green threw herself into soccer—the sport her mother played as a young girl and that her father pushes Valentina to excel at. Now, four years later, 17-year-old Valentina has lost an important game and the captaincy of her school's varsity soccer team. Her chance of obtaining offers from colleges decreases as her father's disappointment increases. When her best friends Dina and Ovie suggest returning for one last summer to the camp they went to as children, Valentina ultimately agrees. When she arrives, not only is she surprised to find out that the soccer teams at the camp are serious and lead to major school offers, but she also learns that she must co-captain a team with her biggest rival, Leticia Ortiz. What starts off as an uncertain summer co-captaining a struggling team turns into a life-changing experience where Vale finds new friendships and realizations that bring her closer to her brothers, helping her realize she doesn't have to treat others like her father treats her. Along the way, Vale experiences love with the one girl she always thought would be her rival. This realistic fiction novel will have readers turning the pages, experiencing the flurry of emotions Vale does—from uncertainty, to painful confrontations, to hope and happiness. Vale is Colombian on her mother's side and Irish-American on her father's, and identifies as queer.
VERDICT: A fast-paced novel with a unique protagonist who discovers first love, truths about herself, and takes back the love for soccer she had left behind.—Selenia Paz
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Library Journals, LLC
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Paz, Selenia. "You Don't Have a Shot." WebOnlyReviewsSLJ, vol. 69, no. 10, 6 Oct. 2023, p. 1. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A770206604/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=59cf4972. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
You Don't Have a Shot
Racquel Marie. Macmillan/Feiwel and Friends, $19.99 (386p) ISBN 978-1-250-83629-8
Biracial (Colombian and white) 17-year-old Valentina "Vale" Castillo-Green--who describes her sexuality as "almost universally apathetic"--lives and breathes soccer. But following an angry outburst at het rival, Latina lesbian Leticia Ortiz, during a match, Vale is stripped of her captainship. She believes that her dreams of earning a college scholarship and escaping her emotionally abusive father are now forfeit. Het friends persuade her to attend a summer soccer camp intending to play a few games for fun, only for the camp administrators to reveal they've invited college scouts to the final match. Vale is cettain this is her chance at regaining her lost dreams, but it turns out that Leticia's at the camp, too, and they've been assigned as co-captains. To make it to the final game, Vale needs to train their inexperienced team into fighting shape and figure out how to get along with Leticia, who might not be as terrible as Vale had assumed. Via Vale's witty and acerbic first-person narration and her palpable passion for soccer, Marie (Ophelia After All) delivers a textured sapphic romp rhat spins an earned enemies-to-lovers romance amid empathetic depictions of one teenager coming to terms with the effects of her treatment of others, as well as her treatment of herself. Ages 14-up. Agent: Thao Le, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (May)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
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"You Don't Have a Shot." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 14, 3 Apr. 2023, p. 71. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A746558243/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0a2628d6. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
Marie, Racquel YOU DON'T HAVE A SHOT Feiwel & Friends (Teen None) $19.99 5, 9 ISBN: 9781250836298
A refreshing, queer coming-of-age story.
Valentina Castillo-Green is captain of her soccer team, and even with her two best friends playing by her side, she still allows herself, as usual, precisely seven seconds to panic before the last and biggest game of the season. Not only is Vale's intensely competitive father closely watching, they're playing against undefeated Hillcrest, the team Leticia Ortiz, her childhood nemesis, is on. The game goes poorly, in large part because of Vale's impulsively angry interactions with Leticia. More bad news follows--coach tells Vale she won't be captain the following year, putting her chances of a college soccer scholarship at risk--so her besties propose a fun alternative for the summer. The three of them return to the soccer camp in Santa Cruz that they used to attend together. It starts out well with some happy reunions, but things quickly go south because not only is Leticia there, she's assigned to co-captain a team with Vale, one that could salvage her college dreams. But in spending more time together, the girls develop feelings for one another. Colombian and Irish American Vale is easy to root for. She sounds authentically her age as she wrestles with believable problems and complaints, engages in self-reflection, and confronts her changing feelings for Letitia. The lively banter and fun cast of broadly diverse characters support a story in which soccer forms the backdrop of a sweet romance and a teen figures out what's truly important to her.
Uplifting. (Fiction. 13-18)
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"Marie, Racquel: YOU DON'T HAVE A SHOT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Apr. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A743460915/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=22dacb8c. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
This Is Me Trying
Racquel Marie. Macmillan/Feiwel and Friends, $19.99 (368p) ISBN 978-1-250-89138-9
Marie (You Don't Have a Shot) traces the lasting effects of a teen's death by suicide in this introspective novel. After spending three years helping to look after his grandfather, Santiago Espinosa returns to his small hometown of Greensville, Vt., for his senior year. He has not spoken with friend Beatriz since the two lost Bryce, their best friend and Bea's boyfriend, to suicide shortly after Santiago moved away. Bea rebuffs Santiago's apologies and overtures of friendship, having adopted an icy personality and goth style to mask her lingering pain. As the friends stumble toward reconciliation, Santiago grapples with his obsessive-compulsive disorder and his relationship with his selfish father, who has perennially neglected him to launch his music career, while Bea navigates panic attacks and avoids Bryce's grieving family members. Though the plot occasionally feels jam-packed, Marie blends prosaic high school concerns over college, dances, and relationships with wrenching depictions of adolescents struggling to cope with a traumatic loss to deliver a tender portrayal of reconnecting after grief. Santiago and Bea are Latinx; supporting characters are racially diverse. Ages 14-up. (Apr.)
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"This Is Me Trying." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 3, 22 Jan. 2024, p. 94. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A781418419/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b182aa92. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.
Marie, Racquel THIS IS ME TRYING Feiwel & Friends (Teen None) $19.99 4, 16 ISBN: 9781250891389
A pair of queer small-town teens grapple with the loss of their friend.
As she begins her senior year, Beatriz Doughtery, who's Irish and Colombian, is still grieving her dead boyfriend, Bryce, who took his own life when they were in ninth grade. His death hangs over Bea and her diverse friend group; to cope, Bea has distanced herself, hiding under her newly adopted goth look. When Santiago Espinosa returns to Vermont from California to look after his abuelo and finish high school, Bea's furious. While almost everyone else welcomes him back, as far as she's concerned, Santiago has been MIA since the funeral, leaving her to make sense of things without her childhood best friend. But Santi has been struggling, too: When he left town, he wasn't on speaking terms with Bryce, and in the wake of Bryce's suicide, that's been an unbearable weight. Now, he's seeking the connection with Bea that he's lost. The story is told from both their perspectives, allowing readers further insight into Santi's and Bea's broken hearts. But the will-they, won't-they drama of forgiveness drags as Beatriz and Santiago circle around each other, their collective guilt and formidable lies gnawing at them. The impact of Bryce's suicide is prevalent throughout this novel, whose characters desperately try to reconcile themselves with their memories of a friend and urgently attempt to live in the moment.
An overly introspective dive into the murky landscape of lies, love, and forgiveness. (content warning, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)
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"Marie, Racquel: THIS IS ME TRYING." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A782202696/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=73974856. Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.