THE REDEMPTION OF DAYA KEANE

Narrator Elisa Melendez delivers this LGTBQIA story in a solid voice. While it deals with sensitive topics, the main character, Daya Keane, has a resilience and self-assurance that are illuminated by Melendez. Queer high school junior Daya cannot believe it when her longtime crush, Beckett Wild, speaks to her at a party neither one should have attended. Since her father left the family, Daya's mother has joined a strict evangelical church in their Arizona hometown. Can Becket and Daya be together despite their strict religious families? Smoothly portraying teens and adults, Melendez changes her pitch, tone, and cadence. She captures Daya's mother's instability with an unsteady voice. Daya is Latinx, and Melendez narrates some Spanish with no accent. A.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2024]