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A review by sarahanne8382
Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert
3.0
I was kind of "meh" about this one until it took an abrupt left turn about 90% of the way through. I have little patience for kids living relatively sheltered lives in Silicon Valley, having panic attacks about whether their overprotective parents will catch him sneaking out to an art gallery, which is what this book starts as. However this is a very "show, don't tell" book, and the plot twists are skillfully and miserly doled out across the length of the story with the piece that puts it all together not coming until nearly the end.
The thing that kept me interested were the complicated relationships between him and his friends - the hurt in the wake of a friend's suicide the year before, the even longer simmering tension between him and his best friend. I thought it was going to be the kind of coming of age story where a kid learns how to outgrow his strange parents and become his own person apart from them.
But it turns out his family is the real story and the friends are just the side plot. The story you start with is just a fraction of the story you end with. This book is so many things, and all of them are good, but the sum of their parts is even better.
The thing that kept me interested were the complicated relationships between him and his friends - the hurt in the wake of a friend's suicide the year before, the even longer simmering tension between him and his best friend. I thought it was going to be the kind of coming of age story where a kid learns how to outgrow his strange parents and become his own person apart from them.
But it turns out his family is the real story and the friends are just the side plot. The story you start with is just a fraction of the story you end with. This book is so many things, and all of them are good, but the sum of their parts is even better.