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Kelis Rowe is author of
the award-winning
young adult novel,
Finding Jupiter.

Finding Jupiter (Crown, May 31, 2022) is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, September 2023 Pick for The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents’ ALAN Review, a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of 2023, a Michigan State Book List selection and the 2023-2024 winner of the Keystone to Reading Pennsylvania State Book Award in the High School category. Perfect for fans of Forever on Netflix, Love and Basketball, anything ever written by Liara Tamani or Jandy Nelson, and fans of Beyoncé.

It examines paternal conditional love and paternal absence and how it affects the way young people show up in life and in love. Finding Jupiter is a bright addition to the growing canon of contemporary stories that depict the tender interior lives of sensitive Black American teen girls and boys and that center their humanity as they navigate first loves and first times. It includes journal pages of art and blackout poetry from classic novels including The Great Gatsby and Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Finding Jupiter is told in dual points of view, alternating between Ray and Orion’s voices. Fans of Forever by Judy Blume (and Forever, the “reimagined” Netflix series by Mara Brock Akil) will appreciate Ray’s responsible sexual agency. Fans of Jason Reynolds’ stories about Black boys, especially his first love story, Twenty-Four Seconds From Now, from a Black boy’s point of view, will enjoy Orion’s emotional journey and getting a close sense of his interior life as he finds his voice at home and finds love for the first time with Ray.

Finding Jupiter is a literary Young Adult summer romance about star-crossed Memphis teens. Ray is a James Taylor and Beyoncé fan, poet and artist home from the East Coast boarding school she attends on scholarship, content to keep everyone at arm’s length. Orion is a shy-ish champion swimmer who lives with Sensory Processing Disorder and ADHD and is headed to swim for Howard University in the fall. He wears his heart on his sleeve. When they meet at the iconic Memphis Skating rink, Crystal Palace, on Ray’s fateful birthday, their worlds tilt and turn purply pink as they begin to bond over shared grief and fall in love. Finding Jupiter is a love letter to Memphis and to Black teens and readers of all ages who deserve to see their sweet first loves celebrated.

Purchase Finding Jupiter at your favorite local independent bookstore, check it out at your local library, or purchase it wherever books are sold.