Bubbling up with Helena

• Title: Finally Fitz
• Author: Marisa Kanter
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release Date: 4/23/24
• Genre: Romance
• Age Range: Young Adult
• Rating: ★★★★★
• Publisher’s Summary: A bisexual teen girl tries to make her ex jealous by faking an Instagram romance that leads to surprisingly real feelings in this hijinks-filled rom-com perfect for fans of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and She Gets the Girl. Ava “Fitz” Fitzgerald has worked hard to create the picture-perfect life she’s always wanted. She spent her junior year transforming her passion for sustainable fashion and upcycling into a viral online platform, maintaining a 4.0 GPA, and spending every free second with her soon-to-graduate girlfriend, Danica. And this summer she plans to take it all to the next level by attending a prestigious summer fashion program in New York City and convincing Dani that they can survive a year of long distance. But when Dani dumps her before classes even start, accusing Fitz of being more invested in growing her online persona than deepening their relationship, she’s left not only heartbroken, but also creatively blocked. Fitz will do anything to win Dani back, even if that means taking a break from the platform that she’s worked so hard to build. But just as she decides to go all-in on a hiatus, a chance encounter reunites her with Levi Berkowitz, her childhood best friend that she hasn’t seen since elementary school. Levi is struggling with heartbreak of his own, and this cosmic coincidence sparks a new use for her social media savvy. Fitz offers to help Levi craft a fake relationship online to make his person jealous…if in return he can pretend to be her boyfriend in front of Dani to make her jealous. If all goes according to plan, by the end of the summer they’ll both be reunited with their perfect partners and get to rekindle their friendship in the process. Sometimes even the most carefully designed plans can come apart at the seams, though. And when real history leads to not-so-fake feelings, Fitz will have to decide if she’s finally willing to let go of what she thought was picture-perfect and choose what might actually be right for her.

Finally Fitz by Marisa Kanter is straight up delightful. It is full of fun, interesting, and well-developed characters. The story is engaging and uses tropes well. It is one of those books that is guaranteed to leave you smiling.

I am a huge fan of both second chance romance and friends to lovers as tropes, and Finally Fitz uses both so well. Levi and Fitz were separated as kids by circumstance (Levi and his family moved away and then Fitz’s family moved). It may seem improbable that they end up running into each other on the NYC subway, but my husband ran into my brother in Central Park last weekend randomly. (New York can be a small city sometimes). I was immediately invested in Levi and Fitz’s relationship from the moment they reconnected.

Their arrangement to help each other win back their exes by pretending to date hooked me. It’s not only a fun concept and so classic romcom, but it also feels deeply rooted in the fact that they care about one another and want each other to be happy. The dates they take each other on just make that even more clear (like when Levi takes Fitz to a flea market in Brooklyn, which he knows she’ll love).

You know I love good Jewish representation, and Kanter does it so well here. Levi takes Fitz to a Shabbat service, and Fitz feels out of place. She worries that she is not Jewish enough because she doesn’t get a Fiddler on the Roof reference. When she tells her sister, Tessa, about this feeling, Tessa tells her that it is part of being Jewish to either feel too Jewish or not Jewish enough. This absolutely resonated with me. I work in a synagogue, and I still have times when I don’t feel Jewish enough.

I love when authors create their own universes that connect their novels. I loved Kanter’s As If On Cue, and I was so excited for the appearance of Reid, the main character of that book, in Finally Fitz. There is even a reference to Melted, the spoof of Disney’s Frozen, that Reid works on in As if On Cue.

My little musical theater nerd heart loved all of the musical theater references in this book as well. New York City is synonymous with Broadway in my heart (yes, even as someone who has lived in this area for nearly 10 years). It felt so right to me that the teens spending the summer in New York in Finally Fitz are geeking out about musical theater. Levi shares photos of sets he worked on while watching Shrek the Musical with Fitz and her friends. This is also the second book in a row I read that throws loving shade at the Dear Evan Hansen movie, which makes me laugh.

I love Kanter’s work, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a feel good read. I’m already looking forward to her next book.