If you asked me about my reading habits, I’d have to be honest and tell you that young adult (YA) fiction isn’t high on the list. Sure, I’ll read everything from Pulitzer winners to trashy mystery novels I buy at the airport, but YA fiction doesn’t really make it into my Goodreads list very often. But When Estelle at This Happy Place posted a review of Kate Abbott’s new novel Disneylanders, my interest piqued. A quick and easy e-book download later, I settled in to read the book over the long 4th of July weekend.

For many reasons, I adored this book. First, Casey – the book’s protagonist – spoke loud and clear to my former just-out-of-middle-school self. Kate Abbott deftly captures the anxiety, insecurity, and feelings of displacement that many young adults – especially young females – feel between the ages of 12 and 14. Casey was a young adult character who rang true to me; her interactions with her parents, her friends,  her new enemies, and even a potential (boy?)friend, were real and honest and ultimately very touching. Casey is a young adult trying to find her independence, to locate her voice. Disneylanders addresses not only Casey’s desire for independence from her parents, but chronicles her attempts to define herself on her own terms, independent of anyone else. Ultimately, it’s a very moving and believable journey, one that helped me look back with kindness at my awkward 13-year-old self.

Secondly, Disneylanders is a wonderful treatise on nostalgia, a case study in why and how Disney pulls us in, making us forever hold on to sight and smell memories, going weak-kneed at the sound of the background music on Main Street. For those of us who are Disney fans in large part because we grew up on Disney, this really gives the book its resonance. As Estelle noted in her review, Kate Abbott captures the reality of Disneyland in a way that most authors can not – or choose not to do. Through Casey, Kate Abbott creates a landscape of memory that readers will know instinctively to be true. This is Casey’s Disneyland, but it’s ours, too.

Lastly, I think Disneylanders is a wonderful meditation on growing up for those of us who aren’t still in our teenage years. Throughout the book, Casey grapples with the question of whether she is too “old” to go to and enjoy Disneyland. I think this is a question many of us older Disney fans ask of ourselves – is there something sophomoric about our love for this company? Should we be -as I and many others have said – hiding our Disney love in the closet, so to speak? Is there ever an age at which you are really too old, too mature, to enjoy the whimsy and amusements of all things Disney?

This was my first foray into Disney YA fiction; while it probably won’t be the last, I have a feeling Disneylanders will reign supreme. It’s a witty, honest, and charming book about coming-of-age in a place that feels more like home than anywhere you’ve truly lived, and that’s a story I think we can all relate to and enjoy.

Want to pick up a copy of Disneylanders? You can do so here.