Anna Meriano consistently writes fun & engaging stories. I was initially drawn to This Is How We Fly because of how much I loved the author's MG fantasy series, Love Sugar Magic. The contemporary setting here felt just as fleshed out and I adore the messiness of the characters. Even the instances of miscommunication (a trope I often dislike) felt warranted because of how in-their-head teens can be. This was a refreshing story about friendship and that awkward in-between time from high school to college.

This book is very 2021 - if you have questions about teens and how they are viewing gender conversations, this book will help. If you wonder if quidditch is real, this book will help answer the question. If you are hoping to read a fun YA book set between graduation and college, this is the book for you. This book shows us also how communication is key in relationships, both family and friend and sports! In many ways this book did mirror the Cinderella story, but in some ways that unfold will show how it's been updated. I liked the twist of this fairy tale reboot.

I absolutely love retellings and this did not disappoint. I am always looking for YA books to put in my classroom and this one will be included as a several copies book. I will also make sure its housed on my schools library for All students to enjoy

It's the summer before college, and Ellen's life is coming apart. All she wants is one last hurrah, but everyone else seems ready to move on without her. Her friend Xiumiao abruptly dumps the group, and it's starting to feel like Melissa is hiding something. Ellen doesn't feel comfortable at home, where she clashes with her dad and stepmom about everything from her vegan diet to their backwards views about feminism. After one too many fights, she winds up grounded for the whole summer. The one exception: quidditch. Ellen isn't an athlete, and she's never picked up a broom (er, PVC pipe) before in her life. But if this is her chance to make something of the summer, then she'll give it everything she's got.

Oh, this book felt so real. Ellen was almost painfully relatable; I suspect I would have been a lot like her if I had been a teen a decade or so later. I'm particularly grateful for the descriptions of her social anxiety, which made me feel seen in a way that I haven't experienced much in fiction before.

I was initially a bit leery of picking up a book about quidditch, but the author did a great job showing the characters dealing with the complexity of loving something while being clear-eyed about its problematic origins. I loved the frank conversations about social justice, feminism, gender identity, and all the other big topics that Ellen and her friends grappled with. Plus, it was just delightful to watch a group of young adults dedicating themselves to something and unabashedly enjoying themselves in the process.

There were times that I couldn't quite tell where the story was going, or what to think about certain characters. Ellen took a long time to figure out other things that were obvious to me from the start. Some of the lines were super cringey, either from sheer awkwardness or because I felt for a character so much. There were moments that were hard to get through. But honestly, all of that is what makes this book shine. Ellen and her friends are going to stick with me, and I can't help but root for them on and off the quidditch pitch.

This was a cute story about high school/college students and the quidditch community. I loved the characters and thought the story was a lot of fun. I’m probably a little too old to be the target audience for this one but I enjoyed it and think high schoolers would love it even more.

This really reminded me of Fangirl, because at its heart it's a story about a girl in transition and finding herself.

THIS IS HOW WE FLY is a fun, coming of age YA read that is focused on Ellen during the summer after graduating high school, as she finds quidditch as the lifeline she may need as she grapples through friendships and identity. Her stepmom is a constant thorn in her side and grounds her after an emotional outburst. However, her dad agrees to allow her to "exercise" while participating in a local Quidditch club. The misfit team works and plays hard - making her summer complete. #NetGalley #ThisIsHowWeFly #Quidditch

This was a fun read. There were aspects I loved and others I didn’t. I really found the Quidditch element fun. I think it’s provides Potterheads a way to enjoy the fandom again without feeling like they are supporting JKR. The characters are playing Quidditch, but there are only a handful of references to the book. There are a few times JKR’s anti-trans stance is mentioned briefly. It is always in a negative light .

At its heart, this book is a sports fiction novel. We follow the main character as she devotes her summer to learning and playing Quidditch. The characters are very much playing a sport. The practices and games get rough, sweaty, and competitive. There’s a lot covered from the technical aspects of the game, skirmishes, matches, to team drama. I enjoyed seeing Ellen fall in love with the sport.

It’s also a story about growing up. Ellen is in that time in life where she’s straddling adolescence and adulthood. Ellen and her friends are in a transitional time in their life. Friendships are changing. Family dynamics are changing. And there’s a lot of insecurity and hurt Ellen is feeling towards her friends and family. She’s also raising a lot of questions about gender identity in herself. She’s not quite ready yet to dive deep into those questions though. I thought this aspect of the story was handled well, but as a cis woman I am not the right person to make that call. It felt like an important truth Ellen will eventually explore when the time is right.

Ellen does come off as a SWJ which made the character feel more immature in the way where young people believe they know best. She has strong opinions about how she wants to live her life and she’s very black and white about these issues. She’s vegan, feminist, environmentalist, and more. Perhaps that was the author’s intent? To show how teens are often looking for a label/group/cause to align with to better understand who they are. She rages at her stepmother for putting cheese into the salad, but never helps with the cooking or prepares her own meals.

It also felt like the author was ticking off boxes in some kind of liberal issues list. I personally agree with a lot of the issues Ellen fights for but I think the way the issues were written into the story felt weak. I felt the author tackled gender identity and sexism in sports very well. LGBTQ+ diversity was great to see. But animal rights, environmentalism, and homophobia were mostly brought up during fights when Ellen was yelling at her stepmother in an argument. I think the author should have stuck to fewer social issues so that the discussion about them, and their relevance to the plot, could have been stronger.

Ellen also acts immaturely in her friendships. Her focus is almost entirely on herself at all times. When her friend pushes her away, she’s understandably hurt. And yet, instead of giving her friend, who she’s been friends with for years, the benefit of the doubt or talking to her, Ellen turns her back on her. She retreats into herself and acts out in petty ways without thinking that maybe her friend is going through something.

As far as the “loose retelling of Cinderella” marketing pitch, it’s really unnecessary. The only thing that is Cinderella-like is the fact that she has a tumultuous relationship with her stepmother and that she is assigned a lot of chores during the summer.

Overall, this was a fun read that I think a lot of teens will be able to relate too. I’ve always been curious about Quidditch when I heard about it in college. My classmate played Quidditch and showed me photos of his team. I love that we got to know about the culture around Quidditch players. I especially liked how we learn about the sport’s history of supporting all genders, and the players’ right to resubmit their pronouns to ones they identify with at the time.

Thank you to Penguin Teen for sending me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes included in this review are from an unfinished copy of the book.

4/5 stars. “That’s my teammate, this is my team, and this is how we fly.”

This is How We Fly is a book I would highly recommend to fans of Harry Potter and Fangirl. This is How We Fly is a YA contemporary book revolving around quidditch- however, despite being based on Harry Potter, the book doesn’t hesitate to call J.K. Rowling out.

This book follows Ellen, a biracial vegan feminist, who has just graduated high school. After one of her best friends ditches her, she is quickly swept into the competitive world of quidditch by her other friend.

With a fun but easy-to-read style, this book quickly drew me into a story about family, friendship, lighter romance, and what it means to be part of a team. What I enjoyed most about this book was that it was messy- the friendships, the family dynamic, the romance. None of it goes perfectly, and the messiness made it realistic. This YA coming-of-age story was the perfect break I needed from fantasy, and I’m so happy I got to pick it up!

A cute coming-of-age story about a girl finding quidditch after graduating and questioning where she fits into this world.

This book was a sweet coming of age story featuring Ellen after graduating high school. I really enjoyed reading this and definitely recommend picking this book up! It’s so much more than what you think it’s about!

As a Harry Potter fan this book was absolutely amazing! I loved everything about it! The characters were intriguing and I liked the way it was written

This Is How We Fly charmed me for sure: Ellen’s just graduated from high school, which means she’s one muggy summer away from a whole new life. That’s a good thing because her current life kind of stinks: Her two best friends both seem to be pulling away, her evil stepmother is determined to make this a terrible summer, and no one can ever seem to remember that Ellen’s a vegan. When her friend drags her along to Quidditch — a very Muggle version of the magical Harry Potter game — Ellen’s surprised by how much she enjoys this crazy sport and the people who play it. In fact, Quidditch might be the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

This is very much a YA coming-of-age story, and Ellen is very much a person figuring out what matters to her and how to live a life that reflects what matters. Conflicted Harry Potter fans will appreciate that Ellen, too, struggles to balance her love of the Potter-verse with the comments of its author. My problem with the book is that it bills itself as a “loose Cinderella retelling,” and while it definitely features an evil (for no apparent reason) stepmother, that storyline is the least interesting and least resolved of all the threads in the story. Honestly, I think the book would have been better if it had been cut completely. Still, I’m all in for books about how literature saves us in the real world, and this one definitely fits the bill.

This is How We Fly
Anna Meriano

THIS IS HOW WE FLY is a fun, coming of age YA read that is focused on Ellen during the summer after graduating high school, as she finds quidditch as the lifeline she may need as she grapples through friendships and identity.

This was a fun one I enjoyed!

My latest teen read is This is How We Fly by Anna Meriano. Young adult reads have changed a great deal over the years. While marketed as teen reads, there is much to be learned for all ages from this genre. That's definitely the case with This is How We Fly.

This is the last summer before Ellen heads off to college. She and her two besties aren't headed to the same places, so she is looking forward to spending the summer with them. But, the best laid plans....

Instead, one friend wants to cut the ties now and Ellen herself is grounded - for the entire summer. Thanks to her stepmother Connie, Ellen will be doing a list of chores every day. And her dad backs Connie up. (A little bit of Cinderella there...)

I loved Ellen and her passion for her own beliefs, whether it's feminism, veganism or climate control, she is determined to make the world a better place. Connie and Dad really irked me. Connie is well, mean, and her dialogue had me fuming. We get to know bestie Melissa much more than Xiumiao, but both are well drawn with their own issues instead of just being a foil for Ellen.

When Melissa joins a Quidditch team (yup, you read that right - the Harry Potter game), Ellen gets reluctant permission to join as well. The team, the players and the game are a big focus of the plot. I thought it was a unique premise and a great vehicle to introduce so many topics, themes and situations. Friendship, gender identity, romantic relationships, sex, belonging, blended families, coming of age and acceptance can all be found in these pages. There are so many personalities introduced though the team and tournaments. I thought they were really well done and inclusive.

I've of course read all the Potter books and had a pretty good mental image of a Quidditch match. But I had no idea of how this would be played in our reality. Meriano provides great descriptions. And the title of the book is from that question...." If it's Quidditch....how do you fly?"

I thought the writing was great and I enjoyed This is How We Fly very much. I did think the 'resolution' at the end of the book was a bit quick, but it's the right ending

1.5/5 STARS!

I really wanted to love this book. It sounded so cute, but in the end I did DNF (Did not Finish) the book. I think I just didn't really want to read a book about anything to do with Harry Potter after everything that happened with JKR this past year. I do think that this book is probably adorable, but I don't see myself finishing the book anytime soon.

It just wasn't for me. I couldn't get into it.
I think I'm just not a fan of sports books. Never have been

this book was just so cute! I loved the spin on the Harry Potter sport, Quidditch and that this story was really a coming of age tale. A lot of people go through all sorts of things after graduation so it as interesting to see the dynamics suddenly shift in the friendships with Ellen, Melissa, & Xiumiao . The novel really demonstrates how people start to want different things despite being very close to one another, which is important for people to know. Great read!

CWs: Numerous references to the HP franchise and its author (and some direct mentions of the author's harmful ideologies), some implied homophobia, toxic parent-child dynamics, near instances of assault, some descriptions of physical injury

First off, let me just be clear in saying that I will not be assigning this book a rating and I will not be speaking about or promoting this book on my various social media outlets. That is not to say it's not worthwhile or that I personally had a bad reading experience with it. In fact, Anna Meriano is one of my favorite authors and I think she continues to do tremendous work. But because the basis of the story can be triggering and harmful to a great deal of people, especially in my own communities, I will not be putting people in a position to engage with it if they choose not to. If you are reading this, it's because you have sought this review out, not because I have put it in front of your face.

With that said, I think "This is How We Fly" is a story that beautifully explores growing pains, especially for young adults, like Ellen, who are straddling that line between childhood and adulthood. Ellen is living out her last summer at home before going off to college, and tensions are definitely high in her household and with her friend group. Her friends are trying to gauge whether their connection is strong enough to go long distance, her parents seem all but eager to ship her out of the house, and Ellen is still very much questioning who she is and where she belongs.

The family dynamics and cultural dynamics rang really true to me. As an outspoken vegan feminist, it seems like Ellen's natural role is to challenge her family's ingrained ideologies and make them uncomfortable. They don't like that she doesn't quietly and neatly fit into their little box—whether it's because they have to make her a separate dish for dinner or because she'll call them out on their latent homophobia in front of her younger step-sister. They clash often, and I think there's a good exploration of how people can love each other but still disagree with each other and disappoint each other in some ways. The journey Ellen's family has to take in this story is definitely one of healing, especially after the passing of Ellen's birth mother, which they have never fully processed together.

Ellen also feels a disconnection to her heritage, as a white-passing biracial Latinx person, and I appreciated how that was touched on in the story. Whether it's her teammates giving her grief about her hyphenated last name, or how her eating preferences seem to clash and "negate" cultural tradition, Ellen has to navigate her own fraught relationship with both Latinidad and whiteness as the story progresses.

There's also some great stuff in here about gender and Ellen questioning her own gender. That's, in part, why the sport of Quidditch really unlocks something within her, because it is one of the only gender-neutral, gender-inclusive sports out there that is not arbitrarily divided by gender or sex. So being part of that community really opens up Ellen's world and allows her to meet so many people with different experiences, backgrounds, and identities, and it gives her a safe place to explore those feelings and learn how to be okay with questioning things.

The marketing for this book has also dubbed it as "a loose Cinderella re-telling," and I think that fits. You have the contentious relationship between step-mother and step-child, you have a character who's grounded all summer and doing chores from sun up to sun down, a missed connection with a cute guy, and there's some stuff about shoes at the end that I won't spoil. Although "loose" would be the right term, because it's certainly not a one-to-one, beat-for-beat retelling of the classic fairytale, I think there are certainly enough references for the reader to make that connection.

No pun intended, I flew through this book. It was charming, it was funny, and I felt so deeply for Ellen and everything she was going through. That said, it's hard for me to see myself recommending this to people, not only because of the content influencing the premise of the story, but because it's also an emotionally challenging book that really puts Ellen through the wringer. She's on the outs with some of her best friends from high school, she's feeling alienated from her family, she's constantly being blamed for something by her parents, she's struggling to make heads or tails of this new sport and solidify her place on the team. It can be hard to stomach all of that at once, even though it's a very realistic experience. Though the story is hopeful and working towards a happy ending, so to speak, it is definitely an uphill battle to get there. So if you're interested in this one, definitely keep that in mind.

As I said before, I love Anna Meriano and I appreciate her work so much. While this book is not going to be for everyone, it's definitely perfect for people who have complicated emotions about certain wizarding franchises while still appreciating the fandom. While that's not my experience, personally, I think the primary focus of the story is Ellen's journey to finding confidence and community over everything else. At the end of the day, I enjoyed this one and I look forward to reading more of Meriano's work.

Anna Meriano scores multiple goals in This Is How We Fly, and even catches her own snitch while doing so.

Ellen somehow manages to get herself grounded through the whole summer. No friends, no phone, no going out. The only thing that manages to give her some freedom, is Quidditch practice. A sport created for a series of fantasy books that in our world, doesn’t actually include flying. But with actually having to participate and work out, and having to deal with a family who doesn’t care for her, can Ellen actually survive the summer? Or will she crash into the ground before college even begins?

This Is How We Fly offered me a view into a world that was once my safe space. It’s no secret what’s happening in the literature world with JKR, the creator of Quidditch. And I think it’s important to note that I do not support her, no matter how big of a hero she was once to me, and neither does the author. The book in fact talks about her view points. And while it is fair for everyone to have their own opinion, we must all remember that some opinions are extremely hurtful especially coming from someone with a large audience. With that being said, it’s time for Quidditch!

In the beginning, I had a bit of a hard time trying to remember the large cast of characters that we’re introduced to. It’s not because the author does a bad job at it, because they were pretty self-explanatory, especially with their Quidditch positions. It’s just a personal problem that I need to work on. The main character, Ellen, obviously stands out as well as her best friends and family.

But there was one character that stood out to me more than Ellen. Her step-mother Ellen was truly the wicked step-mother, and made me dislike her more than any other character I’ve read in a long time. I know her intentions were good and she only wanted the best for her family, but the lady was truly out for blood. Not literally, but I’m sure if given the chance there would be some. Aside from her, I thought the entire cast of characters was great. Everyone had their flaws that made us dislike some more than others.

The story itself was one of my favorite parts. Ellen has to deal with her step-mother and what she feels like is her control over her own father. She has a summer left before she moves to college and she feels like she’s not being treated fairly. Through Quidditch she’s able to escape her family drama and find a new found love of sports. I’ve only ever seen Quidditch through videos but reading about it was a whole different experience. Even though Ellen finds drama within the Quidditch community, playing it was one of the best parts of the book.

It felt so action packed that I found myself wanting more Quidditch and even hoping that we could get a sequel with more Quidditch scenes. I thought it was very well done, and that the author did an amazing job at making sure the reader knew exactly what was going on and how it worked. Especially since it’s a complicated sport.

Aside from all that, I found Ellen’s story to be a true story about what it means to grow into an adult and leaving behind your younger years. We see the dangers that come with growing up as well as the good times that are promised. We see her interactions with wanting to fight for social justice and help her younger sister turn out into a good person. We see her want to feel the love from her father and friends. And we see her grow into a new person, one that believes anything is possible.