With her future at Kensington, a prestigious school focused on the arts, in a bleak state, Jordan is desperate to get a part in something. Her frustration and desperation to succeed leads to her last ditch, and hopeless, attempt to audition for the successful a Capella group the Sharpshooters. The foolish part of course being that the Sharpshooters are an all male group and Jordan is most definitely not a boy. Julian is born the day Jordan stuffs her hair under a wig and lowers her voice a little, and thereafter things get wonderfully messy and also marvellously good. This book features a host of brilliant, varied characters that you soon long to know personally, charmed by their friendships and their drive to succeed together. Honest, endearingly charming and fun, this book genuinely had me snickering and smiling as I read. Truly lovely, whether you give a monkeys about a Capella or not - though I suspect you'll be tempted to google some groups after finishing this! (I received a copy of this book for an honest review, which I was more than happy to give!) Bookseller - Waterstones Cambridge

Jordan Sun is a junior at Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts. She loves acting and singing but despite her hard work, she never gets cast in the school musical. And to her parents, who focus on clear academic results (the stereotype about Asian parenting proving very true in Jordan's case) it seems that Jordan doesn't need to be at the expensive boarding school. She's not good enough to get cast in the musical, so she might as well come home and save the much-needed expense that they can't really afford. Desperate to prove her parents wrong, but unable to travel the traditional road to success with her unusual Alto 2 voice, on a whim Jordan auditions for a slot that has recently opened up in one of the popular college a cappella groups; The Sharpshooters. There is only one catch... the group is an all male one, and so not only does Jordan have to pretend to be a guy during the audition rounds, if she actually makes it through she'll have to become her male alter-ego for the rest of her time at Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing Arts. Doesn't the summary to Noteworthy sound like an absolute hoot? It instantly reminded me of a Pitch Perfect twist to the 2006 classic She's the Man, starring Amanda Bynes as a girl-dressing-up-as-a-boy to join a boy's soccer team (inspired by Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, but She's the Man is arguably the much more well-known classic out of the two, of course) and the comedy elements within Noteworthy did definitely feel reminiscent of that. However, while there were tons of laughs to be had within the pages of this book, there was far more substance to the story than there perhaps seems to be on the surface. Yes, this is a classic gender swap at its core, with all the misunderstandings and mishaps that accompany that, but Jordan's transformation throughout the book, especially after assuming her alter-ego for a while, was remarkable. And the questions it brings up about gender as a result of this are fascinating and certainly worth to be explored further. Not only that, but author Riley Redgate also sensitively deals with topics such as race and poverty in such a way that it will make the reader think about this on a much deeper level than most young adult novels manage to achieve. It creates a story that is rooted in the many challenges faced by today's teenagers battling the precarious and confusing road to adulthood, and will hopefully provide some guidance, and perhaps even a beacon of light in the distance, for those struggling with similar issues. Combining the laughs of the situation Jordan finds herself in and the depth of the story it's rooted in, Riley has created a really gripping, not to mention awesome, novel that I adored even more than her debut (and that's saying a lot, because I loved Seven Ways We Lie!). Noteworthy discusses subjects such as gender, race, religion and poverty in honest and enlightening ways, and is wrapped in a contagiously fun musical theatre and a cappella package. What is there not to love?!