Reviews with content warning for Bullying - Ellen Outside the Lines

Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Ellen Outside the Lines by A.J. Sass

7 reviews

careinthelibrary's review

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3.0

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ezwolf's review

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adventurous emotional informative reflective 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

5.0

First of all, I was just about in tears (happy tears!) by the end. To have a queer Jewish character who uses she/they pronouns really just made me so indescribably happy!

Jewish middle grade is going to be my favorite genre forever now I think. I've read so many great middle grade books with Jewish characters in the last few years and it makes me so happy for kids now to have such great representation in books, especially when so many Jewish books focus on the Holocaust (but yes, those are important too).

I loved that Hebrew was spoken between Ellen and her abba and that we got to see Jewish traditions just as part of Ellen's every day life. I've had l'cha dodi stuck in my head all day now though.

This book had a lot of great moments for the audience to learn about Judaism, gender identity, sexual orientation and autism.

I will now be reading all of A.J. Sass' other work as soon as possible!

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betweentheshelves's review

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emotional hopeful fast-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

4.5

Jewish rep (I don't think I've ever seen a middle grade book where they spoke Hebrew), queer rep, and autistic rep, all done fabuously. Elle felt like such a real, authentic character, going through things that every middle schooler goes through: changing friend groups. At least, that seems like a pretty universal thing to me.

I basically read this book in one sitting because it was paced so well, and I was so engaged by the characters. This is AJ Sass's second book, but you can bet that I will be on the lookout for what he writes in the future. I've thoroughly enjoyed both books so far!

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