Reviews

I loved this! It's not super often that I read middle grade books, but I truly enjoyed this one. Despite it being a middle grade, there was some surprisingly mature content. The book touches on incredibly difficult topics of suicide, drug dealing (and having parents in jail / prison), foster care, and bullying. Chad Lucas did an amazing job at addressing these issues while still maintaining the levity and heart that you would expect in a middle grade. I felt such a connection to Brian and loved both his and Ezra's character arcs. This was a super quick read that I'm happy I picked up. I immediately moved on to the sequel.

alexsemihiatus's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

jackie_marion's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

punkcalf's review

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5.0

To summarise this book in one word; Important

This the type of gentle novels we need growing up. This is exactly the realistic stories we yearn for. This is what anxiety feels like growing up and how it feels to love your parents but knowing they're messing up or doing wrong by you. This is what it feels to come out and getting mixed reactions and even those who aren't malicious can hurt us.

Spoiler

Colby lifting up his sheets to hide his bare chest when Ezra came out; I felt that so hard I cried. It's this kind of homophobia that is still present today and I love how Ezra acknowledges it. It could be worse; it also could be a lot better

I love the realism of being a parent too soon and how everything just fell into place. The theme that you don't need to forgive people if they hurt you and that being the bigger person doesn't always work.

This is such an important novel and I cannot recommend it enough and my one true wish is that it gets translated in many languages so it can earn a spot in middle grades across the world.

AMAZING

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