Nicole Melleby

An almost addictive read that I hated to put down for any reason! Twelve-year-old Brady Mason is living in a group home with five other girls when one of them becomes convinced that she's the biological daughter of fashion editor Elena Lavigne. They make a post that goes viral, lawyers show up to do a DNA swab, and...it's true.

Brady is whisked from New Jersey to the Upper East Side of New York, where the fanatically busy Elena tries (and largely fails) to make time for her. Brady becomes show more much better acquainted with her "nanny" Mia, who, fortunately, is awesome (and also queer, allowing Brady to come out comfortably). Brady and Elena also have different approaches to public attention: Elena likes to kill them with kindness, while Brady prefers to fight back and show no weakness.

Everyone's heart is in the right place, though, and after a fight and an attempt to return to New Jersey, the air is cleared and the reader has optimism for Elena, Brady, and her found (in all senses of the word) family.

Quotes

"Curiosity isn't rude as long as you aren't mean about it." (Mia to Brady, 100)

"They were wrong."
"I know....But you have to be better about how you respond to people who are wrong." (Brady and Elena, 254) show less

i absolutely loved this. i'm not entirely sure the middle grade rating works - it's for sure the high end of middle grade or maybe the low end of young adult. there is some difficult content in here and it's really well handled, but i'm not sure the age group that would most relate. still, i thought this was just excellent. i love, being an adult, being able to really understand both the 13 year old character and her mother, and see what they were both going through while trying to come to show more terms with pluto's diagnosis and new way of being in the world. the way they both are trying so hard for the other, but not always doing the right thing. it's so realistic and so powerfully true. it's also written really well and i'm so impressed that she could capture so much about mental illness, family, belonging, identity, burgeoning sexuality, and more, in such a poignant and intense way. the space thread was perfectly woven in. this is really well done. show less

Where was this book when I was growing up? Out of control angry and never knowing why? So glad it exists now, and I really appreciate that it centers on a blended family with two moms and a donor in the mix; that it asks questions about genetics; that it changes the conversation from the kid being in the wrong, to finding ways to help the kid. It's a very hard, very triggering read, but it's also powerful.

These 16 short stories by celebrated authors of literature for young people center the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in pivotal moments of childhood and adolescence.

As the title suggests, this collection delivers a spectrum of diversity in representation of both personal identities and genre. Whether the stories contain overt fantasy (like dragons, spells, the undead, and time loops), subtle glimmers of the supernatural (like ghosts and magical letters), or realistic grounding in the everyday show more (like a new kitten, sports, and school), they capture with honesty and vulnerability the feelings that accompany events like the grief of losing a friend or facing rejection from a crush, the nervous thrill of new feelings for someone special, and the freeing, but sometimes still scary, power of self-discovery. Although the majority of the selections are prose, the anthology includes two comics and one story in verse. Many of the protagonists feel a budding desire for close connection—a witch with a squish on her ordinary neighbor, an aspiring marine biologist with a changing friend group, a pirate who misses their sister—and they overcome self-doubt to reach for it. Not every crush works out, and sometimes feelings get hurt, but these outcomes lean toward recovery and personal growth while validating the sadness of loneliness. An essential read, this collection breaks free from the dichotomy of representing LGBTQ+ lives as total tragedy or one-true-love, happily-ever-after coming-out stories.

Vital and liberating. (Anthology. 8-13)
(Kirkus Review) show less