Feature book: Social Queue

Social Queue by Kay Kerr

Subgenre: young adult romance
Release date: 28 Sep 2021
Publisher: ‎The Text Publishing Company
Format: ebook and print
Length: 304 pages
RRP: $10.39 (ebook); $19.99 (print)

Author Kay Kerr is a former journalist and newspaper editor, now a freelance writer. She received her own autism-spectrum diagnosis while she was writing her first novel, Please Don’t Hug Me. Her experience in newspapers and autism have gone into Social Queue, so it rings with absolute authenticity.

Zoe Kelly is finally past high school, which was ‘a mess of bullying and autistic masking that left her burnt out and shut down’. Now she’s at university studying journalism, following her dream to become a writer. Her first internship is with an online media company called Bubble—which actually sounds like quite a good place to be.

At an ideas pitch she talks about the pitfalls of dating (and dating apps), and the editor of Bubble encourages her to write a piece about her experiences at high school. Which she does.

The article is in the book, and it’s arresting. You’d have to be made of stone not to be moved. I wish more articles like that were published. Zoe tells the truth about how she’s found relationships a complete mine-field and has mis-read social cues all her life. It’s an online hit. Much to Zoe’s surprise, several guys and one woman from her old high school respond—and her old interactions with them sound a bit different from their perspective. It seems possible Zoe mis-read their high school responses to her, even though she thought she got it right at the time. The editor asks her to follow them up. It takes a fair bit of courage (understatement) but Zoe agrees, with full disclosure she’ll write about their meets.

The first is her best friend’s brother, who seems lovely. But he’s her best friend’s brother. He’s always been around; he even filmed Zoe and her best friend doing movies of their dolls when they were young. He’s still around, even though his sister has gone off to London for a gap year. In fact, they video-call his sister together once a week, and text often. He’s always been nice to her. But has she mis-read him, too?

Zoe learns a lot as she works her way through her list of commenters, and she’s honest in the responses she writes for Bubble—again, you can read the articles in the book. They’re terrific, even when they’re difficult to read because of the pain and distress it takes for Zoe to understand her relationships—the good and the bad. The responses to her articles keep rolling in, and also give the Bubble staff new insights into Zoe’s world.

At the end of the day, is it possible for Zoe to find a boyfriend? One with whom she can navigate that rocky road to romantic love?

Utterly endearing and 100% heart-warming, I loved Zoe and I loved this book. Once I started, I couldn’t put it down; I was absolutely on Team Zoe! Thank you Kay Kerr, what a smash-hit, honest read.

reviewed by Malvina

A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.