“Seventeen-year-old Lacey Burke feels like the last person on the planet who should be doling out sex advice. For starters, she’s never even kissed anyone, and she hates breaking the rules. Up until now, she’s been a straight-A music geek that no one even notices. All she cares about is jamming out with her best friends, Theo and Evita.” This is from the description of The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me, a young adult romance novel released today on Amazon.
Althea Kontis of NPR describes the book as “a dense and ambitious debut novel, covering a myriad of subjects from the ethics of sex ed to a girl’s first sexual encounter. There is a fascinating juxtaposition between the innocent, overwhelming feelings fueled by Lacey’s first love and first kiss, and the comfort with which she discusses what are typically deemed more mature topics — like oral sex and consent — with her peers. Lacey’s mother plays an important role, being both a font of wisdom and levelheadedness and a source of amusement — she’s so insistent that the kids be comfortable with these discussions that they inevitably become pretty uncomfortable. In this way, Hinebaugh subtly but intelligently raises the question of why these topics are still awkward and even taboo.”
The novel takes on the topics of abstinence education, access to birth control, and more. Kontis adds, “I would recommend it to fans of the subversive new Netflix series Sex Education, and to any teen who wants to know more about sex.”
