Such Great Heights by Rajani LaRocca

Blurb:

Siya Kumar is done with liars.

Part of the reason Siya joins her school’s mock trial team is to honor the memory of her mother, a lawyer who was killed in a car accident when Siya was just ten years old. Her mom always told her that the truth is like a flame that burns away lies.

When Raj Raghavan, varsity soccer star and mock trial co-captain, seems interested in Siya, it feels too good to be true. Everything is golden until an overnight team bonding session, when Siya accidentally gets locked in a room with another guy until dawn. Even though Siya swears nothing happened, she doesn’t feel like Raj believes her.

At the same time, the details of the mock trial case are suspiciously similar to the circumstances of her mom’s death—which leads Siya to wonder if it was really just a car accident that took her mother’s life.

From award-winning author Rajani LaRocca comes a contemporary retelling of the Ramayana that asks whether seeking the truth is always the right thing to do. Sometimes, is the past better left behind?

Review:

Siya Kumar has been hurt by liars before, and she doesn’t want to deal with them ever again. Joining her school’s mock trial team in the hopes of honoring her late mother, who died in a car accident when she was young, she chases the truth her mother always advised her to long for. But when Rak Raghavan, a varsity soccer player, mock trial co-captain, charming geek, and all-around vanity project, becomes romantically interested in her, it feels like her dreams are coming true and she can’t quite trust them.

Drawn into a romance with Raj that seems too bright to be real, she thinks everything is finally falling into place in her life until a mock trial team bonding exercise where Siya accidentally gets locked in a room with another guy on the team until the next morning. She swears nothing happened between her and the guy, who is her friend’s boyfriend, but Raj doesn’t believe her.

Determined not to let the incident shake her, she and her other mock trial team members ready themselves to compete for a prestigious mock trial competition their school is participating in (and yet has never won). In preparing for the trial, however, she notices similarities between this fake case and the death of her mother years prior. Similarities that have her digging up secrets that might be better left buried, and which have the potential to tear her family—and her friendships—apart.

Such Great Heights is the first contemporary novel I’ve read in a very (very) long time, and it truly reawakened my love for the genre especially in the young adult space. I loved reading about the protagonists struggles to fit in and believe herself capable of being wanted and believed throughout the narrative, and how she struggles to accept the truths she learns throughout the narrative. As someone who’s always struggled to believe in myself and that others might truly care about me or want what’s best for me, I truly related to her desire (and seemingly contradictory fear) of being seen.

I also loved how true to the young adult space this novel was. There are less and less contemporary books being published for young adults, but this story is why those tales are so important to push out and into the world. With characters who act their age and worry about their social status as well as acceptance (which is something most if not all teens worry about throughout their years of High School), it provides a sense of solidarity that teenagers sorely need in the current publishing climate.

I also strongly respect that LaRocca didn’t lean on lustful subplots or intense romantic relationships to market this world and Siya’s story, especially with the rise of “spicy” young adult fiction. It feels authentic to stories that were published in the early 2000s, giving room for interpretation to younger readers who need more stories about real challenges and real problems that they can relate to.

Such Great Heights is written at a slower pace than the stories I usually read, but it’s no less immersive and vilifying. Featuring marginalized voices and niche occupations, it’s something readers will be able to peruse to both educate themselves and to experience the world through another perspective. It was phenomenally written!