Review: Smash or Pass by Birdie Schae

The sight of her in the golden morning sun is something straight out of a painting. I’m no artist, but even I feel the urge to capture this moment, if only to bottle up the calming warmth that fills my belly.

Chapter 7: Never Wake A Girl Up At An Ungodly Hour

Why Smash or Pass?

I first heard about Smash or Pass from readwithcindy’s 26 debut books in 2026 video. For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may remember that I stopped reading any young adult books nearly a year ago with To Shape a Dragon’s Breath. At that point I had concluded that YA was just not my thing anymore.

So what brings us to this review of a YA sports romance book? Well, the key aspect that piqued my interest was that this is a book with autism spectrum representation *and* it has a sapphic romance – both things I want to read more of. I thought the premise sounded cute and it was enough for me to override my own no-YA rule and put it in my TBR and put in a eBook preorder.

This is my first time reading anything by Birdie Schae. Author blurbs on the edition I read are from – Rachael Lippincott, Kelly Quindlen, Sophie Gonzales, Ann Zhao, Erin Baldwin, Kalie Holford, Samantha Markum, Jenna Voris, CL Montblanc, Elle Gonzalez Rose, Jen St. Jude, Sujin Witherspoon, Ellen O’Clover, and Sydney Langford.

Let’s get into it.

The Book

Smash or Pass is a YA contemporary (sports) romance novel that follows the story of 16-year old Ellie, an autistic girl that spends the summer at a beach volleyball summer camp right after she had gotten broken up with the Asshole. His name is Daniel but I am going to keep referring to him as Asshole. All the homies hate this guy. Ellie goes to this camp trying to get this Asshole back but ends up falling in love with Sierra, the daughter of the camp legend.

As far as I can tell there are three key threads running throughout the story – Ellie & her romantic interests, her autistic traits & how they interact with the people around her, and her relationship with her brother Noah. The beach volleyball camp almost feels incidental to the whole affair but it is not, the love interest Sierra is really into volleyball and there are key character development moments for both Sierra and Ellie as they play volleyball together.

There’s a good variety of side characters in this story, most of them other teenagers attending the SMASH camp. They clearly aren’t the main focus of the story but I really appreciated that there was black and brown lesbian representation in the form of Yasmeen and Maya respectively. Their dynamic was adorable and I think a story about them would make for good reading.

Autism Spectrum Representation

The star of the story Ellie was by far the most interesting thing about Smash or Pass. More specifically the way this book developed her as a character. We start off the book by Ellie listing her rules for social interactions. I’ll list them here so y’all can get an understanding of what Ellie is like at the beginning of the story.

1. Try to avoid one-one conversations and stay in groups as much as possible. That way, before you react to something someone says, you can quickly look around and make sure you act the way you’re expected to.
2. Before you meet up with people, take some time to prepare yourself for possible scenarios.
3. Repeat things in your head before you say them out loud, and always add enough clarity so your words can’t be misunderstood.
4. Always keep the topic of the conversation on the other person. If you start rambling about things you feel strongly about, you won’t know when or how to shut up.
5. Make eye contact when people talk so they know you’re listening to them. If they’re talking about how they are feeling, nod so they know you think their feelings are valid. Don’t forget to smile casually if it’s a lighter topic
6. Keep your hands still when you talk (and, actually also when you don’t). Always be aware of your movements before you accidentally do something that’s considered weird.

Autism is a spectrum and every autistic person falls differently on the spectrum so not all traits that are considered to be autistic apply to every autistic person. Going into this as an an autistic myself I was very curious what traits I would have in common with Ellie.

I definitely take time to prepare myself for possible scenarios when I am meeting up with people, especially for the first time. I occasionally repeat things in my head before saying them out loud and I always aim for clarity in my communication above all else. I tend to ramble a fair bit so I am always self-conscious about the fact that I can talk “too much” in a conversation. Extended amounts of eye contact is tiresome so I avoid it.

All of these behaviours are what is known as “masking” which in this context means an autistic person repressing their autistic traits in the presence of (usually neurotypical) people so as to not standout or be considered “weird”. It is all rather exhausting to do because it is fundamentally working against what your brain wants to do at any given time.

A significant chunk of Ellie’s character development in Smash or Pass is about her breaking free of these masking rules that she has given herself and being more of herself around others even if that makes her the “weird” one. There are also other people who are supportive of her in this journey – her brother Noah, her parents, Gigi – one of the counselors at SMASH who is also autistic herself and understands what Ellie is going through. I found the amount of support Ellie got very heartwarming.

I think that Birdie Schae wrote a nuanced, well thought out representation of an autistic teenager. One of the reasons I stopped reading YA is that I had a hard time relating to teenage characters in books and that is something that keeps getting harder the further away I get from my own teenage years. Ellie is the first time in a long time I felt I could really emotionally connect with a teenage character in a fiction novel.

I wish I had read this kind of book when I was a teenager myself, I think that would have helped me figure myself out a lot quicker. I am glad that autistic teenagers now can get this kind of nuanced representation in a fictional book.

Sapphic Romance

Now let’s talk about the romance for a bit. The romantic interest in Smash or Pass is one Sierra Levine, the daughter of a retired beach volleyball legend who has a terrible relationship with her father, a person who sees everything through the competitive lens of volleyball. Sierra is also a lesbian, and that resulted in her having to leave her school volleyball team due to her teammates being hella homophobic.

I thought that the romance between Ellie and Sierra was cute. I liked that Ellie was a confused and clueless lesbian who didn’t know she was a lesbian yet and I liked that Sierra was standoffish at first but slowly started to warm up to Ellie. They had good chemistry and I very much ship it. I liked Sierra as soon as she immediately clocked that Daniel was a asshole and Ellie deserved much better.

Concluding Thoughts

Smash or Pass was just the right mix of cute, messy, and sappy that I needed. I loved the autism spectrum representation we got in Ellie and I loved her romance with Sierra. There was a good amount of diversity in the side characters and the sports aspect of the story while not my cup of tea was a fun enough backdrop for the story to keep me interested. Short and sweet, this is the perfect summer read.

After reading this book, I am relaxing my “no YA” rule to be more like “YA occasionally” – especially if the YA has a cute sapphic romance in it. I am definitely open to reading more along that front. If y’all have any recommendations on that front, please do reach out with them!

That’s all from me, see y’all in the next one.

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