Ratings3
Average rating4
this was way more emotional than i anticipated going in. this is a ya coming of age story but our main character was convinced via rape and has an estranged relationship with her mother because of this. she is trying to apply for colleges and feels like she cannot get a grasp on what to write because of this relationship.
this relationship with her mother is a huge portion of the book and her grappling with the fact of how she was brought into this world. she is also in a support group with other teens going through this and we see how this affects them in different ways which i really enjoyed.
derek and michie are absolutely adorable and i loved their relationship so much. i do wish we got more about derek and his struggles. we focused a little bit on his family but michie goes through so much and i wish that derek had at least one thing. it seemed a bit unrealistic that his life was so peachy keen. derek was such a sweet, wholesome, supportive bean tho
i loved seeing michie's relationship with her grandma as well. a lot of the black community is raised by grandparents and other relatives so i loved seeing the representation even tho personally i have never had relationships with any of my grandparents.
i think this discussed something i have never even thought about personally in such an amazing way and we really saw how it impacted michie. while it may have been too much for a ya audience i think it could have done more to talk about rape culture and how rape impacts more people than just the children conceived from it. it talked about the mothers slightly but i think if it dove into that more it could have been an absolute favorite.
overall i would highly recommend this for the audience that it is aimed at.
thank you to lane clarke, and netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.