Do you want to read a story about an extraterrestrial who thinks she is about to vanish from Planet Earth and wants to win a pageant as a way for people to remember her?

Or a story that talks about the frank disrespect and unfairness bestowed upon the queer and black community?

Miss Meteor, as the name indicates is a pageant in Meteor, a town famous for being named after, YOU GUESSED IT, a meteor. This is the 50th annual pageant and an event of great tourist opportunity for the town.

For the teens however, it is an opportunity to connect with their long separated friends and embrace their identities. It is a pageant that will make them realise that they are important and that they mean something.

I know, I am basically just giving a brief gist of the story but I think it is necessary for us to focus on how important knowing that you matter is.

Miss Meteor is a fast-paced, easy-to-read story exploring various subjects ranging from racial prejudice to queer-phobia, teens finding their confidence to finding a way back to their friends, all intermixed with a fun and heart warming story.

If you are a fan of ‘You should see me in a crown’ and are looking for a similar book, this one is the pick you need. ( )

Lita (Estrellita) is a sweet and petite sensitive soul who makes friends with cacti and helps her "aunt" with her brujeria (positive). She's kind of a mini pixie dream girl (get it? cuz she's short and quirky) who wears what she wants and rides a little girl's bike. Lita decides to win the Miss Meteor pageant even though she's short, chubby, brown, and knows nothing about beauty pageants. Knowing this, she calls on Chicky and her MM pageant-veteran sisters to help her enter and win the pageant. Craziness ensues, obviously.

Chicky (Chiquita) is an androgynous loner who hides behind her self-cut bangs and sticks out like a sore thumb from her four older hyper-femme sisters as well as their traditional town. The Quintanillas run a really sweet-sounding diner called Selena's (Selena has the same last name as them) that I wish I could eat at. Chicky and Lita used to be best friends when they were younger, until the white popular mean kids' bullying drove them apart.

Meteor, New Mexico is just as much a character as the girls, with its quirky small-town-ness and yearly cornhole competition-slash-Miss Meteor pageant. The girls' love of their hometown is so strong that you come to love it too. That said, there's a lot of ridiculous racism and homophobia that they have to deal with. Lita gets racist/colorist/sizeist bullying; Chicky gets homophobic bullying. Both girls get love interests, obvi, and have to overcome their insecurities.

I liked this book so much! It gave me such a good feeling at the end. I loved the girls and their love interests and their crazy families and the town. I definitely recommend the book for its representation and themes.

Read the full review, including trigger warnings for this book, at https://fileundermichellaneous.blogspot.com/2022/09/book-review-miss-meteor-by-t... ( )

This book is featured in a blog post at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2020/09/21/miss-meteor-blog-tour/ ( )

I liked the story a lot, but key concepts were never explained (why was Lita from stardust, why was she going back, and if the meteor fell 50 years ago, how is she only 16?). The book also would have benefitted from tighter editing. That said, I’m glad I read it and I’m recommending it to others. ( )

I can't stop thinking about this book. I finished it yesterday and rated it four stars but have since raised my rating to 5. A beautiful coming of age story set in an eccentric small town, the story is focused on Chicky and Lita, two BFF's. The two have a falling out prior to where the book begins. As the story unfolds, they find their way back to each other and find some new friends along the way. The story has magical realism, own voices, strong female friendships, found family and strong LGBTQIA representation. Content warnings: transphobia, homophobia, racism, fatphobia.

I loved every minute of this book and finished it all in one go. Highly recommended. ( )