Nina Packebush

Huge shout-out for representation -- for queer characters (several, including trans), pregnant teens (several, including generational), young adults being shunted into psychiatric facilities and/or mistreated by their families, adoptions that harm, and one of the best representations of survivors dealing with grief in the aftermath of a suicide. Also for both bad and good therapists, bad and good doctors, poverty, supportive vs non-supportive families, kids having to fend for themselves when crisis overtakes a family. This book has a lot going on, and isn't going to sugarcoat it. In that sense, it's a really important book, and Banjo is a really amazing center. It is at times, unfocused. The cover makes it look like it might be a graphic novel (nope). I wish the romance at the end had remained a friendship, because I agree with another reviewer that they don't seem to have a romantic chemistry, but perhaps in this case, romance is finding someone who you can rely on. There are many types of love.

I think this book is pretty thoroughly YA.… (meer)