What’s worse? Someone using your face for catfishing or realizing you actually do have a crush on the catfished girl? Harper “Band Geek” McKinley just wants to make it through her senior year of marching band―and her Republican father’s presidential campaign. That was a tall order to start, but everything was going well enough until someone made a fake gay dating profile posing as Harper. The real Harper can’t afford for anyone to find out about the Tinder profile for three very important reasons: 1. Her mom is the school dean and dating profiles for students are strictly forbidden. 2. Harper doesn't even know if she likes anyone like that―let alone if she likes other girls. 3. If this secret gets out, her father could lose the election, one she's not sure she even wants him to win. But upon meeting Margot Blanchard, the drumline leader who swiped right, Harper thinks it might be worth the trouble to let Margot get to know the real her. With her dad’s campaign on the line, Harper’s relationship with her family at stake, and no idea who made that fake dating profile, Harper has to decide what’s more important to her: living her truth or becoming the First Daughter of America. Gr 9 Up-It's Harper McKinley's last year as first chair saxophonist in the school marching band. While her conservative Republican parents want their family to stand out to aid her father's presidential run, all Harper wants to do is blend in and focus on the band and her friends. She's doing just that when suddenly, Margot, a girl she's only spoken to once, bursts into her dorm to break up with her. Shocked, it's then she learns that someone has been posing as her on a dating app, and exchanging explicit messages with Margot, a drummer in the marching band, and the biracial, dreadlocked daughter of the Canadian ambassador. The two become fast friends with added romantic tension while Harper works to figure out her own identity with the support of her friend Bellamy, who is bisexual, nonbinary, and uses they pronouns. Harper confides in them as she grapples with the realities of being a closeted asexual lesbian and a subject of interest for the paparazzi with a mysterious dating app scandal, a newly blooming love, and high-profile homophobic parents. At first glance this book appears to take on too much at once, but Quinlan skillfully weaves everything together brilliantly into one very natural-feeling, heartwarming, and compelling story following characters who teen readers will be glad to have met. Contains trigger warnings and resources. VERDICT A wonderful ace rom-com bursting at the seams with representation, this is a must-buy for all collections.-Kayla Fontaineα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. "Quinlan skillfully weaves everything together brilliantly into one very natural-feeling, heartwarming, and compelling story [...] A wonderful ace rom-com bursting at the seams with representation [...]" ― School Library Journal “I ate up Skye Quinlan’s prose like candy. Forward March is a fun, inclusive, gloriously band geeky romance that tugged hard at my heartstrings.” ―Robbie Couch, author of The Sky Blues “Fresh, full of heart, and gloriously queer. Skye Quinlan hits all the right notes.” ―Tobias Madden, author of Anything But Fine All Harper McKinley wants is for her dad?s presidential campaign to not interfere with her senior marching band season. But Harper?s world gets upended when the drumline?s punk-rock section leader, Margot Blanchard, tries to reject her one day after practice. Someone pretending to be Harper on Tinder catfished Margot for a month and now she?s is determined to get know the real Harper. But the real Harper has a homophobic mother who?s the dean and a father who is running for president on the Republican ticket. With the election at stake, neither of them are happy about Harper?s new friendship with out-and-proud Margot. As the election draws closer, Harper is forced to figure out if she even likes girls, if she might be asexual, and if it?s worth coming out at all. Skye Quinlan (she/her) was born in California during an earthquake and raised in the Midwest, where cornstalks outnumber people. Forward March is her debut novel. When she’s not writing, you can find her at the nearest metaphysics or craft store, dressed up in cosplay at the nearest convention, or ruining the furniture in her basement with epoxy resin and paint. She still lives in the Midwest, with her wife, their dogs, and the occasional little human who comes to visit them often (their niece).