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The Cat King of Havana by Tom Crosshill

The Cat King of Havana

Tom Crosshill, Mia Nolting

HarperCollins · Hardcover · September 6, 2016

Lolcats.

Coming of AgeContemporary YA RomanceHispanic & Latino YAromance
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Who it’s for
A playful, historical teen story with enough charm to keep the pages moving.
Genres
Contemporary YA Romance, Coming of Age, Hispanic & Latino YA
Published
HarperCollins, September 6, 2016

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About this book

Lolcats. Salsa dancing. Unrequited love. Tom Crosshill's smart and witty debut teen novel treads a colorful coming-of-age journey from New York City to Havana that will appeal to fans of books by Matthew Quick and Junot Díaz. When Rick Gutiérrez—known as "That Cat Guy" at school—gets dumped on his sixteenth birthday for uploading cat videos from his bedroom instead of experiencing the real world, he realizes it's time for a change.

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So Rick joins a salsa class . . . because of a girl, of course. Ana Cabrera is smart, friendly, and smooth on the dance floor. He might be half Cuban, but Rick dances like a drunk hippo. Desperate to impress Ana, he invites her to spend the summer in Havana. The official reason: learning to dance. The hidden agenda: romance under the palm trees. Except Cuba isn't all sun, salsa, and music. As Rick and Ana meet his family and investigate the reason why his mother left Cuba decades ago, they learn that politics isn't just something that happens to other people. And when they find romance, it's got sharp edges.

Playful History

A playful, historical teen story with enough charm to keep the pages moving.

Come here for

  • playful historical-teen energy
  • romance-adjacent momentum

Expect

  • a sustained, immersive read
  • category-browseable Latinx YA signals

Where it sits

Coming of Age50%
Hispanic & Latino YA42%
Contemporary YA Romance40%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Coming of Age
  • Diverse YA Fiction
  • YA Stories About Girls & Women
  • Indigenous Voices for Teens
Show all 8 publisher categories
  • Caribbean & Latin America for Teens
  • Dance Stories for Teens
  • YA Romance
  • Contemporary YA Romance
Authors
Tom Crosshill, Mia Nolting
Publisher
HarperCollins
Published
September 6, 2016
Format
Hardcover
Reading lane
Coming of Age