A review by bluehairedlibrarian
Things We Couldn't Say by Jay Coles

emotional reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I’m having a hard time putting my feelings for this book into words. It’s an achievement of emotion and expressing intersectional marginalization for a Black queer boy, but at the same time I found the pacing to be haphazard. I found it difficult to keep track of the passing of time bc days would randomly pass in a sentence and days of the week didn’t always match up with the timeline explained by characters within the story. I know this is a me issue, but I also know this is an editing issue. The same goes for movement and placement of people in space. As someone with a visual imagination, a character suddenly being in a different part of a room throws me from the emotional beats of the story. Once again, a me thing.

There are a lot of pop culture references, many of which seemed a bit odd for a teenager of this generation. A lot of the details didn’t into the flow of the writing for me either. But when I could get passed my issues with the writing, this is a beautiful story about a boy learning who and what he wants his family to be and finding a way to be brave in the face of adversity.
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