Thanks to Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley for an advanced copy of Ollie In Between by Jess Callans to review! I was immediately drawn in by the cover for this one, and I’m always on a quest to read more middle grade. As a debut novel, I was super impressed by this one!

Callans perfectly captures the experience of puberty when you’re in middle school. That feeling of confusion, anxiety, and feeling like everyone else knows more than you do. I can imagine that those feelings are magnified when you’re also questioning your gender identity, and there are a lot of middle grade readers who will feel seen by Ollie. 

Outside of identity, this is also a book about friendship and finding new friends who accept you for you who are. Middle school is a notoriously hard time for that, and shifting friend groups isn’t the most fun thing in the world. Ollie navigates this in this book, eventually finding somewhere they fit in. 

In the current state of book banning, this book is such an important story. Callans hits all the right notes for a middle school story, and I can’t wait to recommend it when it comes out in April. 
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Review to come!