Romance, aspirations and family ties collide in Will Kostakis’s brilliant new YA novel, We Could Be Something. It’s a vibrant and heartfelt story about the power, and limits, of love.

Sotiris is struggling to decide on a direction for his life after publishing a book at the age of 17. He’s torn between his literary ambitions and a budding romance with a cute bookseller named Jem. Meanwhile, Harvey is dealing with the fallout of his dads’ break-up: he’s had to move cities to live above his extended family’s café. Yet parental drama is just the beginning of Harvey’s problems. He also has to confront his great-grandmother’s deteriorating health and his own messy love life as he navigates adolescence as a young pansexual man.

Will Kostakis has done a masterful job of weaving these two storylines together into an emotionally resonant tapestry of family turmoil, grief, and heartbreak. The storytelling is complex and mature, but grounds itself in its two teenage narrators, whose voices feel so authentic that I read Will Kostakis’s own age in disbelief. We Could Be Something is a truly special literary novel that explores Greek culture, queerness, the writing industry, and most importantly, family, and the love that binds it.