Comics and Graphic Novel/Memoir Round-Up

November 9, 2015 |

When I began working in libraries, comics and graphic novels puzzled me to no end. I didn’t know what to get or how to stay on top of things, and even more challenging for me was not understanding why I could or could not acquire certain titles. It wasn’t until I took a continuing education class in comics and graphic novels for the library, offered through the University of Wisconsin’s LIS program, that it all made sense to me. I’d always been a casual reader, but I’d primarily read graphic memoirs; being forced to read beyond that really helped me learn that there’s a lot out there that’s totally up my alley, and it taught me the most basic and most crucial component about comics: there’s a difference between single issues and trades. For comics readers, this is a no brainer. But for those who aren’t, it’s this little clarification that makes the entire process of finding, acquiring, and reading comics so much easier.

I tend to read comics in trade format. This means multiple issues of a comic are bound together into a larger, more study edition. These are the ones you can find in most standard chain bookstores. Not everything ends up in trade, and trades come out after a run of singles are out. Single issues are, as the term suggests, one-off issues. These are released on a schedule, and they’re just one installment of a larger comic story arc. Think of it sort of like a serialized novel in a magazine. Single issues are flimsy and really not great for library purchasing, as they tend to be made of even cheaper, less durable material than a standard magazine is.

Besides wanting to make that distinction for anyone approaching comics without the familiarity, I thought it worthwhile because this post is a round-up of my recent comic reads. Most of what I read, again, are in the trade format; however, a couple weeks ago I picked up a single issue of a brand new comic and loved it to bits and pieces — enough that I’ll keep buying it in single issues to stay with the story as it progresses. It’s kind of fun to have that anticipation.

All of these comics are fine for teens. Some are more graphic/violent than others, but they’ll all have teen appeal in some capacity. More, and the thing that excites me most about my recent comic binge, is that they all feature fantastically drawn female characters (and yes, I mean drawn in all senses of the word there).

Trade

Lady Killer by Joelle Jones and Jamie S. Rich

This one is going to appeal to readers who love noir and who are totally all-in on a story about a woman who murders for hire. It’s completely compelling and engaging and a big reason is because it messes with what we think about when it comes to hitmen.

But more — and the thing that made this particular comic really work for me — was that it’s stylized in a very vintage manner. The cover image is pretty perfectly representative of the comic as a whole. Josie is a housewife and a mother, and her job doing the dirty work for others is unknown to her family. She looks one way but the actions tell a completely different story, and it’s this tension of image and perception against reality that make this unique and a lot of fun.

I have a hard time finding dark comedy in my reading that works for me, but Lady Killer absolutely killed it. Josie is unapologetically violent woman who is “just doing her job” during a time when that was totally unacceptable. And realistically? It’s still totally unacceptable, so the social commentary on gender roles here resonates strong. I’m eagerly awaiting more in this story because there’s so much here to juice. You can check out some of the panels here.

You need no backstory, set-up, or history to jump into this comic. It’s brand new, and this first trade will get you into it right away.

Black Widow #1 by Nathan Edmondson and Phil Noto

I’ve actually got all three of the Black Widow trades on my shelf, but I’ve only had an opportunity to read the first one. It was far from disappointing, and it was absolutely worth the effort it took to find — for some reason, snagging the first trade of this one was a challenge, as it was sold out everywhere for a long time.

Natasha Romanov, aka Black Widow, for those who don’t know, is a member of The Avengers, and more, she’s a former KGB assassin who is out to seek atonement for it. Readers who have zero knowledge of The Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or Black Widow can absolutely jump in on this first trade to get the entire story. You’ll get the arc immediately, and you’ll find out the history and the current space of Black Widow right here.

What’s really great about the first trade is that it’s entirely about Natasha. She’s not sharing the spotlight with any other people at this point. It’s violent, it’s rough, and we’re immediately thrown into her unstable world and learn why it is she lives with her fists raised.

The story is compelling and really a solid superhero to start with for the uninitiated, but what really sings in this is the art. It’s gorgeous — Noto does a spectacular job using the pages, of using color, and of rendering the heroine here on her own strong terms. So many people have trouble with the idea of “strong female character” as a descriptor, but Nato creates that in his art. In a culture that continues to erase or “forget” about the female characters in superheroland, it’s refreshing to see Black Widow standing here on her own and doing so powerfully. I’m excited to see her story continue, which is why I bought the next two trades immediately after finishing this. I never thought I’d be interested in a superhero movie, but when a Black Widow film happens, I will absolutely want to see it because her story is so fascinating.

Single

Paper Girls #1 by Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, and Matt Wilson

One issue of this was not enough. I’m chomping at the bit for #2 because this introduction to a new story of rad newspaper delivery girls in the 1980s hooked me immediately and ended in a wonderful cliffhanger.

The night after Halloween, a group of 12-year-old newspaper girls discover what appears to be a machine created in honor of the 50th anniversary of War of the Worlds. This is the cliffhanger, but the big takeaway from the comic isn’t just the fact it’s a compelling hook, but it’s wildly feminist. There are instances of hateful language used, but it’s called out and expressed as inappropriate, and more, the girls are there working side by side in their delivery.

The dialog in this issue works, as the girls all sound like teenagers. We don’t get a terrible amount of development, but that’s because this is still the first issue, so there’s a lot of room for growth. I think that’s what makes this a really promising new series — Vaughan sets up a lot of space for these girls and their arcs to grow and mold, but we know, too, that they’re going to be smart but not too-smart-for-12-year-old-girls, which is a thing I find distracting and inauthentic in stories.

The art is, as the cover shows, a lot of fun. It’s definitely stylized and it’s definitely 80s-tastic, but that’s part of the appeal. And the references and allusions are a blast:

I’m ready for issue #2, which will hit comic stores later this month.

Graphic Memoir

A Year Without Mom by Dasha Tokstikova

Rounding out this round-up of recent comics reads is a graphic memoir that I didn’t necessarily love, but that I see the appeal and interest for.

It’s the early 1990s in Russia, during the Cold War, and Dasha’s mother decides that in order to better herself and her own education, she needs to leave Russia for America for a year. Dasha is living with her grandmother during this time, and we see what a year in this very specific time and place look like for her as a young girl.

There’s friendship squabbles, crushes, tension with family, and then, of course, the Russian politics of the early 90s. It’s very relatable, which I think is the key selling point of this particular memoir — while we know that there’s a lot of historical baggage (which is underexplored here, in part because it’s from the perspective of Dasha’s 12-year-old self and in part because there “grounding” in this book is about a year without mom, not the year without mom while the government is unstable), the take away is that Dasha’s life isn’t dissimilar from any other 12-year-old in the world. She’s on that precipice of being a child and being a teenager, and it’s the absence of her mother that causes her more challenges than normal. I really wish we’d gotten more of the political climate here, though, because I’m not as familiar with this time and place as I’d like to be, and I suspect this will hold even more true for today’s tween readers.

More, though, I found some of the choices in design on this completely frustrating — why would you lay black text on gray coloring? It’s easy to overlook and miss and it’s even more challenging to read. I’m also curious why so many reviews don’t point this out. It’s a flaw, not a feature. I think the lack of color use in this memoir is effective, particularly for capturing place, setting, and mood, but the choices in layout were not reader friendly, especially for anyone who may be less familiar with reading graphic stories. There’s not an immersive experience to be had here.

This slice-of-life graphic memoir is worth a read, though it’s one you don’t have to buy or own because the challenges don’t make it entirely stand out. I do think it’s interesting that it’s another title set during the Cold War in Russia, a trend that’s popped up a few times in recent YA. I think it speaks to the authors more than it might to today’s teen readers, if only because the understanding of what growing up with that climate means might be a bit lost on them.

JANE-EMILY by Patricia Clapp

October 29, 2015 |

I went into Jane-Emily not knowing what to expect. In part because the descriptions for this book are all over the map and none of them really get to the heart of what the book’s about. The other reason I didn’t know what to expect was that I am never quite sure how older horror in YA holds up. I knew that a book that was reissued decades after it came out meant that there was something to it, but I had no idea if it would fall into the genuinely creepy camp or would be more in the silly camp.

This falls squarely in the “holds up and is totally creepy” camp.

Liz has been sharing her chapter by chapter thoughts on this one. Go read them. She’s picked up on a number of things that I thought about as I was reading.

Rather than talk about what did and didn’t work in this book — for me, it was an all around winner in terms of working — what really captured my attention with this one was how it was framed and structured and whether or not a book like this would be considered YA today.

Louisa is our narrator, or at least, she’s the primary voice we hear through the story. She’s 18, and she’s been dating a boy for quite a while before she and her cousin Jane go spend a summer at Jane’s grandmother’s home. Understand that Jane has experienced a lot of loss and trauma in her life; this summer is meant to give her the opportunity to be a kid and enjoy her summer. Louisa agrees to go, even though she’s a bit more reluctant. She also reluctantly agrees to send and receive letters with her boyfriend who is far more attached to her than she is to him.

This seems to be Louisa’s thing, being somewhat distant.

The bulk of the story, though, focuses on Jane, who begins to see and experience strange sensations that she knows belong to the spirit of Emily. Emily was her grandmother’s daughter, and she was, as grandma and everyone else in the house continues to say, “a not good kid.” Emily “resides” in a mirror ball, and her spirit continues to reach out to little Jane. It’s creepy in an atmospheric, Shirley Jackson type way — it’s far more about what you don’t see than what you do see. It’s clear that Emily is haunting Jane, though I frequently wondered how much of that was a true spirit haunting her vs how much was Jane’s own trauma coming to haunt her. I think the fact you don’t ever REALLY know is the part that’s most chilling.

But back to Louisa. For being the main voice, we actually never get to know her, aside from the fact that she’s got this boyfriend who she seems distant from, and she’s been set up by her great aunt to meet a local doctor for potential dating purposes. Louisa’s not impressed with the doctor at first, but slowly, he begins winning her over, even though he speaks less-than-flatteringly of women. This book was set in the early 1900s, so pre-suffrage, but there’s little to no pushback on the doctor’s mentality by Louisa. I don’t think it’s because Louisa doesn’t have an opinion; rather, I think it’s because Louisa isn’t interested in telling her own story at all. She’s instead the vessel for Jane/Emily’s story.

This construction fascinates me. Being that Louisa is the teenager here and Jane is a mere 9 years old, it’s a little strange that this book is and was marketed for teenagers. The teenager in the story (the only teenager in the story!) is Louisa, but her story doesn’t matter at all. Rather, this is about the 9 year old, and this is the kind of book that would go over well with middle grade readers. Mary Hahn Downing fans would find a lot of good here.

I think this book would also do well with adult audiences in many ways. Ignoring the nostalgia factor, which is certainly important with this particular book and its potential audience, a lot of the way the book is written has appeal to adult readers who want a chilling story. There’s distance between subject and story, and there is a lot to dig up in terms of what was going on at this historical moment. Again, Liz has done a fabulous job pulling out the questions she’s had as an adult reader, including how old the characters were when big historical events were going on, as well as what was and wasn’t in fashion during this period. The ripeness this book has for that sort of unpacking leads me to think about how appealing it would be for adults; look at books like The Book Thief and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. In different parts of the world, they were treated very differently and for different audiences than in the US.

It’s odd to think of a book being marketed as being for teens doing better or being more suited as a middle grade OR an adult novel, but I do think middle grade and adult fiction have some interesting parallels to them. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought this, but it’s the first time I’ve sat to digest the importance of voice and framing when it comes to where and how a book fits with an audience. Of course, we know “YA” is a marketing tool, rather than a necessary “type” of book, but this book, being one that was indeed intended for teens, seems to allow room for really thinking about what it is that makes a book for teens or not. Jane Emily isn’t interested in the teen’s story at all. But would moving it outside of Louisa’s perspective change it? Would it be as chilling? Would we be able to figure out what’s going on if it were from Jane’s perspective?

All of that isn’t to say teens won’t enjoy this. They will, but I think this book will tick off all the boxes for that 9-12 readership that’s ready for a YA-type book but do not necessarily want YA. It’s told through an older voice, which is immediately appealing, though the story itself is about the experiences of a 9-year-old. It’s creepy in an atmospheric way, so while it could definitely cause nightmares for more faint of heart readers, the primary take away isn’t in Emily’s ghostly (…or not ghostly!) character. It’s far bigger in terms of grief, loss, and trauma.

Another really interesting note on this book: it’s short. The entire story takes place in roughly 140 pages, and it doesn’t take shortcuts in developing story in them. Sure, we don’t get to know much about Louisa or her love life, but Louisa is built as a distant character from the start. We accept the lack of details to be part of how she takes in her world and how she wants to present the story to us. Susan Hill does this same thing, building atmosphere, character, and story, in about the same number of pages in her classic The Woman in Black, too. Which again: my comps for this title fall right into the middle grade *and* adult arenas. Would fans of teen scream queen Lois Duncan like this? Absolutely. But I also think Duncan has great appeal for that 9-12 age range (that’s when I was reading her, for sure).

It’s interesting to think about this book, how well it went over, how it came back into print, and how it lacks the page counts of today’s books. Does brevity help its longevity? Because it doesn’t dwell on details — and it is set in the past — does that help in its timeless feel? Do the holes in the details make it appealing to adults who will want to fill them in with their own historical knowledge?

Jane Emily was such a great read, and I recommend it, if for no other reason than the number of question it left me with in terms of audience, readership, structure, voice, and more. In a lot of ways, its succinctness left those doorways open in a way that a longer, larger, meatier book sometimes closes. And for me as a reader (and as a horror movie lover), the true chills aren’t in the things we see, but in the things that go unsaid and in the questions that stick around for a long, long time.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part II (2015)

October 28, 2015 |

The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

It’s 1930s America, and Love and Death are playing a game. They each have chosen a player: Love has Henry, a white boy whose parents have died, leaving him in the care of a family who considers him not-quite-a-son; Death has Flora, a black girl who dreams of flying her own airplane across the ocean and sings jazz in a nightclub she partly owns. The rules of the game aren’t quite clear initially, but as readers we do know that these two teenagers will fall in love, and the implication is that their love will be rocky and affect Love and Death – and perhaps the world – in uncertain ways. This is a slow-moving and contemplative story, one that takes a considerable investment of time to appreciate. At first I found it difficult to connect with the story and its characters, which I think is deliberate. The narration is third-person omniscient (mainly), which can often lead to that kind of feel. Some portions are told from the perspective of Love and Death, and they’re both inscrutable entities, though they become a bit clearer as the story goes on. This kind of narration brings inevitable comparisons to The Book Thief, though the two didn’t seem very similar to me. By the time I got over halfway through, though, I felt like I knew the characters on a really deep level – and I felt like I knew Love and Death, too, despite their strangeness. This is a unique sort of book that should appeal to fans of historical fiction and those seeking something different.

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray

This is a story about parallel worlds, which is one of my plot kryptonites. Marguerite’s parents are scientists who have been researching the possibility of travel to parallel worlds, and just as it seemed they had finally figured it out, one of their research assistants – Paul – kills Marguerite’s father and steals all of his research, running away to one of these parallel worlds. Marguerite teams up with another research assistant, Theo, and they go after him. Of course, all is not as it seems, and Marguerite begins to suspect that Paul was framed – but by whom, and for what reason? Fleshing out this mystery is a really fun series of adventures. Marguerite and Theo first travel to a world where technology has advanced at a much faster rate, so we get to see what a potential future would be like. Then they find themselves in Russia in a world where neither the Russian Revolution nor the Industrial Revolution happened – though both might be on the cusp of happening, putting Marguerite in exceptional danger. It’s tons of fun to see all of these possibilities play out, like the best combination of a parallel worlds and alternate history story. There’s a love triangle that adds a lot of appeal, and the question of who really killed Marguerite’s father and why propels the story forward. Exciting and well-written.

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

Aza Ray Boyle has always been sickly. Since she was a small child, she’s had trouble breathing, and it’s sent her to the hospital many times. She wasn’t expected to live to see her 16th birthday, which is right around the corner. She’s been hearing something calling her name lately, and then something crazy happens with a bird, and Aza dies – maybe. She actually wakes up on a ship in the sky, surrounded by strange bird-people, though her body is being buried on the earth below. It turns out Aza is actually one of these bird-people, kidnapped at a young age, and her mother – a bird person as well – has finally found her and brought her “home.” This is one of the weirder books I’ve read. You’ve really got to buy into the concept of a race of bird-people living up in the sky unbeknownst to all the humans below, plus believe the explanation for how Aza’s body was buried but she isn’t really dead. The narration (I listened to this one on audio) is excellent, infused with all the panic and disbelief that Aza feels when she finds herself in a sky ship. Aza’s voice overall is pretty good, actually, and starts the book off really strong – she’s snarky about her illness and how people treat her because of it, and there’s a lot of dark humor in the early parts. Personally, I never fully connected with the bird-people living in the sky plotline, but I’m sure it’s just the right kind of weird for another reader.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part I (2015)

October 20, 2015 |

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

Ahdieh gives us one of a slew of recent stories inspired in some way by the Arabian Nights, and it’s a strong one. Teens who know a bit about the frame story of Scheherazade will love the twist Ahdieh puts on it, while those completely ignorant of it will have no trouble becoming invested. Shahrzad’s best friend was killed by eighteen year old Khalid, the Caliph of Khorasan, after he took her as his wife. He has taken dozens of wives and none of them has survived beyond the morning after their wedding day. Shahrzad intends to become his next wife – but not his next victim. Instead, she plans to take revenge. Readers will know from the beginning that Khalid is not the murderer he is believed to be – a prologue gives this bit away, so it’s meant to be known – but unraveling just why the girls all end up dead and how (if) Shahrzad can put a stop to it is great fun to read about. It’s also a romance, of course, which is also not unexpected, but it’s a good one. The setting is especially well-drawn (the food!). This is a solid story with lots of appeal.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

I’ll confess something: I have never read anything by Holly Black before this. But immediately upon starting it, I was struck by the level of craft apparent; it’s obvious why she’s so highly-regarded. This novel is one of the best-constructed I’ve read in a while, and I found myself marveling frequently at how neatly and effortlessly the story built, layer upon layer. Hazel and Ben live in Fairfold; so do the fairies. The human inhabitants know that the fairies are mostly benign and will only hurt those who don’t follow the rules – tourists, mainly. And if a Fairfold resident is harmed or killed every once in a while, well, they were probably doing something they shouldn’t have. But then the horned prince who has rested in the glass coffin in the middle of the forest wakes, and the Fairfold citizens seem to be fair game. Is the prince, whom both Hazel and Ben thought themselves in love with when he slept, behind it? It’s difficult to give a pithy plot description for this book, because it has a lot going on. Hazel and Ben once hunted fairies, Ben was cursed/blessed with a knowledge of fairy music as a small child, Hazel once made a terrible bargain with one of the Fair Folk, one of the teenage boys is actually a Changeling that the human family decided to keep, and so on. There’s a really rich background to the story, and it all feeds in to the main plotline featuring the horned prince. Fairfold is so well-realized and the characters so well-drawn; fans of urban fantasy and stories about often-malevolent fairies should snap this one up.

Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge

I loved Rosamund Hodge’s first book, Cruel Beauty, to pieces. I loved her writing and her complex plotting and how the book was familiar (fairy tale influenced) yet managed to take me by surprise, too. Crimson Bound is the same – it’s Little Red Riding Hood, but darker than even the original story. That’s something I love about Hodge’s writing: she’s not afraid to give her characters real darkness. Her protagonist in Crimson Bound is a murderer, a girl who has been given terrible, unwanted gifts due to a mistake she made as a young teen. She hopes to atone by finding the sword that could destroy the evil threatening her country, but she’s haunted by what she’s done, what she’s capable of doing, and what she wants to do – as well as what she is becoming, something even worse than what she is. This is a fairy tale mash-up and retelling, a quest story, and a romance (of sorts) all in one, but none of those threads coalesce in a way you’d expect, a hallmark of Hodge’s storytelling. Go into this one without knowing a huge amount of the plot and prepare to be whisked away.

Recently Read: ONE by Sarah Crossan and SEE NO COLOR by Shannon Gibney

October 19, 2015 |

October is on track to be the best reading month of 2015 for me. I’m not particularly surprised, though. Since I track my reading, it looks to me like this is a regular occurrence: every October I tend to read more books than in other months. Part of it is that the weather always seems to give me more energy, and the other part is that I tend to let myself read more than one book at a time, since I love trying to read as many horror novels as possible, in addition to my regular reads.

Instead of talking about those horror reads, though, here’s a look at two recent YA novels I devoured. One of these came out recently, and the other will be hitting shelves shortly. They’re both novels featuring characters who aren’t your typical white girls, and both are the kinds of stories that will really resonate with teen readers.

One by Sarah Crossan

Grace and Tippi are conjoined twins. Their bodies are connected from the hip downward, and they’ve been operating as two girls in one shared body for their entire lives. But now that money is tight at home, they’re being sent to a special private school, paid for by the state. Entering a new school has both girls concerned about how others will look at them, react to them, and treat them. Lucky for them, they find two new friends — maybe one who is a little more than a friend to Grace — who accept them and help them make the transition more smoothly.

It’s anything but smooth, though, as both girls begin feeling their body/ies falling ill. It starts slowly, but then things begin to get more serious. And when a visit to their specialist doctor reveals there’s a serious problem, they and their family have to make the decision on whether or not it’s time to surgically separate them.

Told in verse, Crossan develops a really thought-provoking, sympathetic, and emotionally-engaging story about Grace and Tippi. This is the kind of book readers who want a tear-jerker will love, since it’s going to bring tears throughout.

More than being a story about the conjoined twins, though, this book looks at the whole life of the girls. We see how their parents struggle with keeping a job and an income. We see a father succumbing to alcoholism. We see a younger sister whose life has been upended time and time again because of the needs of her conjoined sisters. Where many would see this as a novel packed with a lot of things, Crossan weaves these threads together effortlessly and shows how stories about “big things” like conjoined twins are never confined to a single narrative. There are so many elements that are a part of their lives outside of their body/ies, and Crossan offers us such a nice picture of that. One of the things Grace talks about is how she and her sister get tired of answering intrusive questions, and by offering an insight into the bigger, more life-altering elements of their lives, we as readers are forced to pause and wonder why it is we’re curious about the weird things, rather than empathetic about the whole picture.

One should also be applauded for having a beautiful design. This is a book you want to read in print because the verse is laid out elegantly, but more, the little design elements throughout really do pack a punch. The silhouette on the cover goes throughout the story, and it is one of the pieces that will further the need for a tissue at the end of the story. A smart, fast, and engaging read for readers who are curious about twins, conjoined twins, verse novels, and more. One is available now.

See No Color by Shannon Gibney (November 1)

Alex has never thought about the fact she’s a mixed-race girl who was adopted by a white family. She’s never put too much thought about the fact she has both a younger brother and sister who are white, born from the mother and father who adopted her after thinking they could never have children. Alex’s big driver in life has been being the great baseball player that her father has pushed her toward being. After his own career as a potential big leaguer in Milwaukee falls apart, he pours all of his energy into making Alex and her brother the next big stars on the field.

Her game, though, begins slipping. And when Alex’s game begins slipping, she begins to pay more and more attention to her racial status. She begins hearing what people say about her and more, she begins to think about the lies she tells people, including the black boy she’s met and begins taking a shine to. Where other people regularly say they don’t see her race, Alex begins to understand that’s not necessarily a compliment. Yet she’s not quite sure what to think of herself, either.

Alex begins to spend more time with her black boyfriend’s family, and she begins to really think about blackness as part of her identity. She also discovers, through the aid of her sister, the name of her real father, and she takes it upon herself to drive out and visit him in Michigan — where she’s confronted again with the reality of her black identity. These are situations in which she’s uncomfortable, but they’re ones that force her and the reader to understand that her black identity matters. There’s a particularly moving scene where Alex goes to a black beauty shop for the first time and learns — really learns — how her hair and her looks require a different sort of treatment that she has to learn for herself. But more, what this scene reveals is that her white family has to step back and recognize and acknowledge blackness as a part of her identity, too.

This fast-paced, shorter novel packs a punch. Transracial adoption, black identity, baseball, and romance all play a part in the story, but they’re not the whole of Alex’s story. This slice-of-life story will resonate with so many readers, including more reluctant ones, so make sure you find space on your shelf for it and more, make sure this is the kind of book you’re promoting and book talking with readers. There is much to dig into here, and it’s timely, relevant, and more, it’s timeless. Gibney doesn’t offer a time period setting in this one, though as a reader, I found it to be set in the late 90s or early 00s, simply because of a lack of technology/access to technology. But that lack of true time setting is a benefit to the story, as it furthers the themes as ones that always resonate.

Pair this book with Renee Watson’s This Side of Home. They’d make for outstanding conversation about race, identity, and family. Hannah Gomez wrote in depth about this title over on her blog, and because she can talk about things I cannot in terms of experience, I highly recommend reading her take on this book, too (it’s positive!).