The Half Of It by Alice Wu

Political dreck partially redeemed by the Cyrano de Bergerac reboot.

In Wu's world, the typical tropes apply: girls are smart, guys are dumm, hetero-normative life is hell. Where it gets weird is that the political statements feel old, like The Normal Heart old, while the characters are just barely old enough to drive.

The story revolves around the tradeoffs and hesitations between philia and eros, with agape and the audience getting short shrift. Since this is primarily a political piece -- not a careful When Harry Met Sally nor even a Little Fires Everywhere -- the core philia v eros dilemma gets only a one-sided treatment.

Wu should have taken her own counsel to be bold, fleshed out the dilemma and added a colliding story arc for the teenage tension between agape and fame in a world of Instagram or whatever the youth are using nowadays. That would have (a) balanced out the politics, (b) made it at least middle-brow, and (c) better placed it as a candidate for high-school curriculum.