4.37 AVERAGE

dark emotional funny hopeful 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
emotional hopeful tense fast-paced
informative mysterious 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
challenging hopeful
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
challenging emotional hopeful reflective tense fast-paced
adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced
emotional hopeful informative sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
hopeful lighthearted sad 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: Complicated

Loved this book. It is about life after a cult, which is rarely tackled in middle-grade fiction. I loved the mother's character and flaws, as did the marvelous Babs. The audio was delightful.
lighthearted 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: Complicated
adventurous emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book fills a huge whole in the market that I’ve never even considered: middle grade books about cults. This one was very well done and nuanced. Fern was given the space to process and deprogram from her experience, as well as to mourn the changes in her life. As a middle school librarian, I hope there continue to be books like this, especially slightly aged up from this one. This is the exact type of topic middle schoolers would eat up if the cover/protagonist/writing were a little more mature. As is, I would say the sweet spot for this one is grades 5 and 6.