Retro

Luna Iglesias didn’t mean to create a social media firestorm by posting a nasty video of her ex-friend Samantha, but she did and cruel comments from across the internet drove Samantha to attempt suicide. Luna feels absolutely horrible. And apparently, so does Limbo, the social media company on which the comment was posted. To set things right and teach about the dangers of social media, Limbo creates a competition for Luna and her classmates to compete in—the Retro Challenge. The idea is simple: students give up all electronics made post-2000 and embrace a “retro” lifestyle. If students can manage to go retro for the whole school year, they get a full-ride college scholarship.

Luna joins the challenge, hoping to redeem herself and make it up to Samantha. And things seem to be looking up after Luna goes retro. She develops tight bonds with some of the other retros, people she otherwise would never have befriended. She enjoys attending retro events and dressing in vintage clothing. Maybe being unplugged was exactly what her life needed, because without her phone, she feels alive.

As Luna traverses the Retro Challenge, the good times are disrupted by suspicious events. A stalker leaves Luna threatening messages. The popular kids, the Goldens, try to sabotage the challengers. The students who fail the challenge disappear. Clusters of dead animals appear in the woods. Soon, Luna realizes that Limbo’s challenge may not be what it seems. Suddenly, it’s up to Luna and the retros that are still left to figure out what’s really going on and determine if Limbo is a friend or a foe.

Luna is a bold, bright main character who realistically embodies teenage spunk. Her unique voice provides eccentric and often meta commentary about how fictional teenagers are portrayed in media, making her an interesting narrator. She’s also a realistic narrator, as she faces realistic teenage issues, like the mishandling of social media. Her youthful recklessness is a deliberate character flaw that makes her feel like an authentic teenager who isn’t malicious but makes a mistake that has serious consequences. Despite this flaw, Luna is a caring and loyal character who forgives others. She believes in redemption, and that gives her a lot of power as a protagonist.

Retro’s array of side characters brings a lot of flair, and all of them have side stories that are easy to get invested in. Luna’s crew is a sweet example of the found family trope, giving a safe space to characters who are all struggling with different things such as clinical anger management, the loss of parents, and the inability to go to college. One of them, Kilo, the mysterious, punky loner, is a standout, with a gut-wrenching backstory that concludes with a serious tug at the heartstrings. Aside from Luna’s friends, the popular bullies known as the Goldens are also given a surprising amount of depth that humanizes them and reminds readers that teenagers often struggle with hidden issues.

The most unique element of Retro is that it’s set to a playlist of old songs—each chapter set in the past is named after a song that is supposed to fit the vibe of the chapter. Readers can access the playlist created for the book on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Music. This is a genuinely enjoyable gag that makes the read more exciting and will likely introduce younger readers to new music.

The “pause” chapters are set in the present and don’t have a song attached to them. They disrupt the book’s flow with an off-putting change in writing style. In general, Retro’s biggest flaw is that it continuously spoils itself by outright telling readers that something bad is going to happen soon. For example, Luna tells the reader that one of her friends is going to disappear before they do. This tactic doesn’t allow suspense to build, and readers are never truly surprised.

The “retro” aesthetic of the props, events, parties, and settings of the book makes for a fun, sometimes cheesy, read. Readers won’t have a hard time having fun alongside the characters. The book starts slowly, but when things get going, they zoom. The action scenes towards the book’s end are a lovely thrill, and the ending manages to be satisfying while still maintaining an element of realism. The only unrealistic element is that Luna and her friends don’t have any symptoms of withdrawal after giving up technology, making it too easy for them to ditch social media.

Retro confronts modern-day issues, using not just the characters and plot but also the flashy retro settings to emphasize and strengthen the book’s messages. The book’s main purpose is to warn about the dangers of social media. It tackles cyberbullying and highlights how the companies behind media platforms can be problematic because they encourage bad behavior and objectify people. But Retro doesn’t just cover social media problems—it addresses the concepts of intention vs. impact, body image issues, the danger of secrets, and even immigration, as Luna’s mother is on a work visa that gets threatened. The book ultimately takes an optimistic approach to the future, demonstrating that younger generations can change things for the better if they band together.

Retro is a bright, entertaining blast from the past with lovable characters, colorful settings, and action scenes that enhance the reading experience. That said, the book struggles to generate suspense due to a spoiler-prone narration style, its slow start, and jarring perspective changes. Still, the positive elements of the book outweigh the flaws to provide readers an entertaining—though at times rocky—read.

Sexual Content

• While shopping, Luna is trying on a pin-up girl Halloween costume and catches her crush Axel staring. “As I slipped into a skintight corset, I caught Axel staring from the next aisle over.” She admits that she likes his gaze. “I pulled my top down a little more. Maybe I wanted him to keep staring. Maybe I liked it.”
• At the Halloween party, Axel and Luna dance, and Axel touches Luna’s body romantically. “I felt his hands and how they advanced—touching my body, gripping my waist, controlling the tempo entirely. . . His chest was pressed close to mine. Our lips were getting closer.”
• Axel and Luna have their first kiss in the movie theater. “I pulled away. He pulled me back. He pulled me in for a kiss. And what a kiss.”
• A Golden’s member, Jade, sexually blackmails Luna with a video of her kissing Axel. Jade narrates what happens in the video. “You and him, getting hot and steamy in the projector. The lights go out. He pushes you against the wall. Bodily fluids are exchanged.”
• Luna’s close friend Mimi casually kisses their other friend Nika.
• While on the bus, Luna kisses Axel. “Just touching him made adrenaline course through my body. . . Then I grabbed his face, pulling him for a kiss.”
• Axel and Luna dance and kiss at a house party. “He touched my hips. Caressed my neck. I smelled his cologne. He spun me to face him, and when the beat dropped, he kissed me. Intense, hot, sweet. That kiss was everything and more.” The scene lasts two pages.
• In Axel’s bedroom, Axel and Luna make out. “I pulled off his shirt. . . My heart pounded. My forehead pressed against his. The only way to fuse with everything he was. . . I wanted all of it.” It’s implied that they have sex. The scene lasts two pages.
• Luna and Axel make out in their school’s darkroom. “Axel pulled me up onto one of the tables and slowly caressed my hips. I put my wrists around his shoulders in the dark. I kissed him hard. Red heat pounded against our bodies.”
• Axel surprises Luna by taking her to a drive-in movie theater, and she kisses him. “I grab Axel by the face and pull him in for a kiss. A kiss that has been building up inside me for so long, one that makes me lose track of time.”

Violence

• The book begins with Luna locked in a room, covered in blood for unknown reasons. “But here I stand, soaked in mud, blood stained across my diamond disco dress . . . And the blood is dried on my hands.” This scene lasts two pages.
• When she was younger, Mimi recalls, “[she] almost drowned” at a waterpark.
• Luna’s close friend, Samantha, attempts suicide by eating pills. “After her mom fell asleep, Samantha would take a pill for every [mean] message she’d seen that day. Finishing the entire bottle — of thirty-seven pills.” Samantha spends time in the hospital and an outpatient psych program and makes a full recovery.
• Jade thinks Axel cheated on her, so she throws a rock at him. “Axel dodged it in the nick of time. It collided with the windshield.” Axel did not cheat on Jade.
• Axel instigates a fight with Vince, a Goldens member, after Vince joins Jade in accusing Axel of cheating on her. “Axel’s hand pulled back and curled into a fist. The blow connected with Vince’s nose, a shot so heavy that it sent him to his knees.” Vince’s nose is injured.
• Luna and her retro friend Kilo discover dead animals littering the woods. “They lay in a small field of grass. Lifeless animals — a family of deer, sprawled in the woodlands, slain. We got closer. There was no blood, and their eyes were still open.” Luna later discovers other dead animals and figures out they’d been electrocuted.
• Vince gropes Mimi at a party. “Vince bumped into Mimi, doing one of the lowest things you could do to someone. Because his hand drifted to the butt of her dress.” She then pushes him into the pool.
• While trying to escape imprisonment, Luna punches one of her captors. “I throw out an elbow, connecting with a guard’s face. I hit him so hard.” It’s unclear if the guard is injured.
• Luna notices “lacerations” on Kilo’s hands. “When his palms turned upward, I saw that the skin was all cut up and dried with blood.” He tries to hide this. Later, it’s revealed that the cuts are from burying the dead animals they found.
• Kilo reveals that his “parents died in a car accident. We were hit by a drunk truck driver, and I was the only one who survived.”
• Luna discovers that Vince has body dysmorphia and has been starving himself/throwing up food to lose weight for his wrestling goals. “‘I have to lose weight to qualify for the next wrestling tournament.’ Vince gagged, coughed, and suddenly threw up.” Axel knows about Vince’s issues and softly chides, “Maybe that’s true. . . but you’ve been purging yourself again, and it’s not only for wrestling.”
• Jade tries to drug Luna in order to stop Luna from having fun at Axel’s house party because Axel started dating Luna after he broke up with Jade. When Luna finds out, she “slapped her across the face. With such force that she stumbled back and her cheek pulsed red.”
• To help Luna escape, a character hits her captors. “And that’s when they’re both clocked over the head. With a cane. The guards stumble to the ground, knocked out cold.”

Drugs and Alcohol

• Alcohol is present at many parties that are thrown and consumed by underage individuals. Drugs are used in a number of contexts, including for medicinal and harmful purposes.
• Samantha attempts suicide via overdose by “finishing the entire bottle—of thirty-seven pills.”
• Luna finds a video on her phone of a very drunk Samantha, which she posts on the internet. “[Samantha] was dressed like a Disney princess, but drinking like it was Pirates of Caribbean. . . I had never in my life seen a princess so wasted.”
• Kilo throws a bottle of whiskey into the fire, but it’s unclear if he had drank from it or not. “[Kilo] approached slowly, his hands shaking with fear, holding a brown paper bag—and from it he pulled out a bottle of whiskey. . . Kilo threw the bottle into the fire.”
• At a house party, tons of students are drinking, including Luna and her friends. When they first arrived, Luna’s retro friend, Darnell, brought them alcohol. “Darnell came flying down the spiral staircase, handing us red cups filled to the brim. ‘Some naughty hydration for my ladies,’ [Darnell said].” This party scene lasts seven pages.
• At the house party, Samantha declines a drink because of the medication she’s taking as part of her recovery from her suicide attempt. “If I mix booze and all these pills I’m taking, I’ll probably turn into a leprechaun.”
• When Luna heads to the Goldens’ hangout, she sees “bottles of booze” on the ground.
• Vince cruelly jokes about Samantha’s overdose, saying, “We don’t sell pills here. At least not your type.” Samantha responds, saying, “Xanax. . . that’s what I took that night. Thirty-seven pills.”
• At the Winter Formal Dance, a female student sneakily drinks from an alcohol flask and admits she’s tipsy before offering Luna a swing. Luna declines.
• Jade reveals she tried to drug Luna by putting something in her drink, though Mimi ended up getting drugged because she swapped cups with Luna. “I was trying to drug Luna. . . It wasn’t a date-rape drug or anything. . . I just wanted to scare you and ruin your night.” She eventually apologizes, and Luna forgives her.

Language

• Profanity is used rarely. The profanity includes hell, ass, damn, and bitch.
• Bodily vulgarity is used on occasion, including the words genitalia, vagina, and penis. Ass is mostly used in this context.

Supernatural

• None

Spiritual Content

• Luna describes the creepy woods using a biblical comparison. “The abandoned forest was like a twisted Garden of Eden.”
• Luna discusses the concept of Limbo in relation to the afterlife. “Traditionally, [Limbo’s] the place where souls are trapped before getting assigned to heaven or hell.”

by Sarah Leberknight