Books over Coffee : Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore

A small town with a pageant that has been around for fifty years. Two ex best friends who team up to upset the competition. What could go wrong?

Title : Miss Meteor
Author : Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore
Genre : Fantasy, Magical Realism, Young Adult, Contemporary, Queer
Pages : 320
Own/Borrowed/ARC : eARC provided through NetGalley
Publication Date : September 22nd 2020
GoodReads Link /Synopsis :

There hasn’t been a winner of the Miss Meteor beauty pageant who looks like Lita Perez or Chicky Quintanilla in all its history. But that’s not the only reason Lita wants to enter the contest, or why her ex-best friend Chicky wants to help her. The road to becoming Miss Meteor isn’t about being perfect; it’s about sharing who you are with the world—and loving the parts of yourself no one else understands. So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough—they are everything.

Witty and heartfelt with characters that leap off the page, Miss Meteor is acclaimed authors Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia’s first book together.

Trigger warnings for racism, bullying, underage drinking, transphobia and homophobia.

I just don’t know where to start with this book! I mean, just look at that gorgeous cover!This was just such a great heartfelt read that when it was over I was sad because I wanted to know what was next for these two friends and this tiny town of Meteor. I will be talking about a lot of things that happen and trying to be as spoiler free as possible but if you would rather go in blind to this book I would suggest skipping to the end.

To start off we have Chicky, who is one of four daughters born to immigrant parents who run Selena’s, a Selena Quintanilla themed restaurant. Chicky is the tomboy to three former Miss Meteor contestants and is introverted. Keeping to herself and her one friend, Junior. Chicky and Lita had been bestest of friends once before she began to pull away from Lita due to some bullying that happened on a field trip when she was a younger. She keeps mostly to herself these days and lets no one see the real her in fear of being further ridiculed. But when Chicky informs her that she is planning on running, she agrees to help her in order to get back at those who bully her in this town that is predominately white and to get a share of the prize money for her family that has fallen on hard times.

Then we have Lita, who has a secret, (this is not a spoiler as she tells you right away in chapter one) she is made of stardust and came to this town on the same meteor that the town is named for and she is slowly fading away. Like her ex friend Chicky, no one knows the real her, no one knows the truth about her or her mother figure Bruja Lupe. Facing that the sky is reclaiming her and she slowly but surely is becoming stardust again, she decides to do something she always fantasied about doing, becoming Miss Meteor. With Chicky’s former competing sisters and her friends at her side, Lita goes forth to sign up and compete.

One of my favorite things about this story was how it depicted small towns. While some can be “welcoming,” there is a limit to just how welcoming they can be. It also showed that just because everyone knows each other, it doesn’t mean that everyone knows each other. There are so many secrets and struggles everyone keeps close to heart and not let anyone else in. It also shows how they all pick and chose what to accept, the town accepts the girls friend Cole, a transboy, mostly because he is part of a affluent family in town but Chicky gets bullied for her sexual orientation (you find out early on that she’s been hiding that she’s pansexual). Cole’s acceptance also has its own limit, he is constantly standing up for his friends and others who get bullied and challenges the bullies and it is slowly tearing at his acceptance.

It also showed the racial divide in this town, while Chicky’s family is held in good regard for being “immigrants who came across the border the right way” and “not like those other immigrants. The ‘lowlifes and criminals’ the news is always screaming about” there are no people dining at their restaurant. None of them support the family or advertise the diner. And when an opportunity comes along to close their restaurant for good, those in power do not hesitate to make it so. When Lita shows up for the first round of Miss Meteor’s competition she notices that there is only a hand full of girls who share the same skin color as her and that most of the brown/black people there are catering or working the event rather than competing in the event.

With every round of the competition we get to watch Chicky, Lita, Cole and Junior grew in their own ways and together as friends. The book shows depths to some minor characters as well, showing sides to Chicky’s sister besides just former pageant competitors and sister to one of the main characters and to Cole’s sister which I enjoyed.

There is a slight note about plot about friend zoning and I understand why they end up together in the end. I just would have really liked it if they stayed friends.

My nitpick is that the meteor landed approximately 50 years before this story takes place and both Lita and her mother have only been part of the community for as long as Lita has been alive and she’s only approximately 16 years old. So I just wanted more about how they came to be or if Bruja Lupe had been a part of the community already before Lita was “born”, or if Bruja Lupe had somehow been a part of how Lita had been “conceived”. But again that’s just me nitpicking about a story plot that I wanted to know a little more about.

Miss Meteor is a magical story about standing up for yourself and letting the world see who you are with no shame or qualms for what they might think. A story about growing up as an individual and living your truth while supporting your friends and their truth in an environment that might try to suppress it. I can not recommend it enough, but do tread carefully for the trigger warnings.

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