Grade 9 Up–Johnson begins this exceptional novel in a lightweight fashion but quickly segues into more serious issues that affect the three young women who make up the Bermudez Triangle. It is the summer before their senior year in Saratoga Springs, NY. At first, organized, serious Nina has trouble adjusting to her leadership workshop at Stanford University. Although she desperately misses Avery and Mel, who are waitresses at a restaurant back home, she quickly falls head over heels for eco-warrior Steve, who has grown up in a commune on the West Coast–so different from Nina’s secure middle-class experience. When she returns to New York, she immediately senses that Mel and Avery are keeping secrets and soon discovers that they have become lovers. Rocked to the core, Nina wishes them happiness, but feels excluded and lonely, especially as her long-distance relationship begins to deteriorate. As is typical for teens, the girls obsess ad nauseam over their romantic relationships. Yet this narrow focus lends authenticity to the narrative, and readers become drawn into the characters’ lives as they stumble toward adulthood, fall in and out of love, enlarge their circle of friends, and rethink their values.
About The Bermudez Triangle
“Their friendship went so far back, it bordered on the Biblical: in the beginning, there was Nina and Avery and Mel.”
So says high school senior Nina Bermudez, describing herself and her two best friends, aptly nicknamed “the Bermudez Triangle” by a jealous wannabe back on Nina’s eleventh birthday. But the threesome faces their first separation when Nina goes away the summer before their senior year.
And in ten short weeks, everything changes.
Nina returns home bursting with stories about Steve, the quirky yet adorable eco-warrior she fell for hard while away, but then when she asks her best friends about their summer romances, an awkward silence follows.
Nina soon learns the shocking truth when she sees Mel and Avery . . . kissing. And she has never felt so excluded from her own friends before.
As Nina works to maintain her tumultous long-distance romance — and as Mel and Avery navigate their own unexpected relationship, through friendship to enemies to back again — the Bermudez Triangle finds themselves stumbling toward adulthood, falling in and out of love, enlarging their circle of friends, and rethinking their values, in this warm and humorous tale of friendship . . . and more.
Maureen Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of 11 young adult novels, including the Shades of London series, as well as several coauthored works. She lives in New York City and spends far too much time online.
About Maureen Johnson
Maureen Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of 11 young adult novels, including the Shades of London series, as well as several coauthored works. She lives in New York City and spends far too much time online.
