This Train Is Being Held

December 23, 2019
In a charming #OwnVoices novel by Williams (Water in May), a ballet dancer and a rising baseball star find common ground and romance via the New York City subway. Upper East Sider Isa, who attends a private school, pursues ballet despite the disapproval of her tempestuous Cuban mother, a perpetual board member who’s struggling with her husband’s layoff. Dominican Alex, who attends school in Washington Heights and travels between his divorced parents, would rather write poetry than play ball, but his former-Yankee father is pushing him to go professional. Both teens are intensely driven, and both have stormy home lives they’d rather keep private. Yet despite their avowals that neither has time for a relationship, their random subway encounters, which begin when Alex holds the door for Isa, evolve into planned time together. When Isa’s
stability at home begins
to dissolve, her attempts to keep up a strong front drive a wedge between them until they find themselves thrown together in a crisis. Demanding parents, experiences of racism, mental-health challenges, gang violence, and the fallout of a lost job blend seamlessly with moments of poetry to create a realistic and complex romance. Ages 13–up.

January 1, 2020

Gr 9 Up-Set against the backdrop of New York's transit system, an unlikely love blooms between two budding artists. Alex, a talented baseball player with a demanding Dominican father, secretly writes poetry. He doesn't want to let his father down but he wants to explore his own dreams outside of baseball. However, he knows baseball is the way out of poverty and the bridge to respect in a world that sees him as just another thug. Isabelle is a brilliant dancer with a bright future. To the outside world, everything looks perfect-her wealth and beauty provide her opportunities and privilege-but there are things she wishes she could change, like her mother's elitist attitude and prejudices. There's also the secret about her brother. Isabelle and Alex meet on the subway and fall in love, but when her father loses his job, Isabelle's whole world is turned upside down. Will their relationship thrive or will it be crushed by the people they love? This is a love story that sheds light on self-hatred and colorism in the Latinx community. Readers will take a walk in Alex's black Chuck Taylors and experience the feeling of being policed when he is just trying to live, and dance in Isabelle's ballet shoes to discover how it feels when people are shocked she speaks Spanish because her skin is white and her hair is blonde. VERDICT Serious romantics will enjoy this love story set against racism, classism, colorism, and mental health stigma.-Cicely Lewis, Meadowcreek High School, Norcross, GA

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2019
A little-more-than-a-year in the life. Isa and Alex have a pretty typical meet-cute: Alex holds the door open for her on the subway so the train won't leave without her--which is good, because she has a very important dance audition to get to. Alex, meanwhile, has regular baseball practices not just with his team, but with his demanding father, who played for the Yankees for a year and a half before a drug addiction set him back. They represent two very different New Yorks: Isa's well-off family is downsizing after her financier father lost his job and is also trying to keep her mother's and older brother's mental illnesses from tearing the family apart. Alex attends public school in Washington Heights and splits his time between his divorced parents; his mother works in a nursing home. What Alex's parents and friends don't know is that he's a poet. Soon he's writing poems for Isa and leaving them on the train car where at first they just keep happening to run into each other before they eventually meet on purpose, away from their parents and clashing friend groups. Blonde Isa is half Cuban and half white American; Alex is Dominican. Code-switching and bilingualism are realistically placed in dialogue throughout the text, without italics to disrupt the reader's flow. Anxieties over mental health, socio-economics, and police and gang violence effectively complicate and deepen the narrative. Heartfelt and meaty. (Realistic fiction. 13-18)

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November 15, 2019
Grades 9-12 Alex Rosario plays ball so people, especially his papi, will see and respect him, but secretly he writes poetry. Isabelle Warren dances because she loves being in the spotlight, but it helps that dancing gives her a break from her tumultuous homelife. From beginning to end, told in the course of about a year, this story explores overcoming appearances and prejudices and the ways loving and taking care of yourself and others is a choice as well as a responsibility. Isa and Alex are from completely different walks of life, even though both of them are children of immigrants, speak Spanish, and live in the same city. Williams addresses these themes in a modern context and doesn't shy away from Alex's justified fear of police officers, Isa's privilege, the dangers of (and alternatives to) running with gangs, how mental health struggles affect families, and the power of sharing the truth on social media. It's a captivating, classic story about two people who "shouldn't" be together, and readers will be cheering them on until its satisfying conclusion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)