EVERY BODY LOOKING is a YA novel in verse about trauma and joy and religion and family and identity and college and dance and relationships and boundaries and liberation. It manages to takes on all these themes, in the limited word count of verse, while also weaving one big thread throughout: learning to fully know and trust oneself, body and heart. Ada is going through this process, and healing from sexual abuse and various other traumas, during her first semester in college. This could easily be a really heavy read and triggers do abound, but I found Iloh to be masterful at balancing very painful flashbacks and their aftermath with beautiful moments of self-discovery, joy, and freedom.

One aspect of the book that really stood out to me as a post-religious person was the connection between Ada’s Christian upbringing and her struggle to listen to and exist fully in her body. Iloh’s analysis of how the Christian theology around distrusting the flesh and dying to ourselves creates an unhealthy relationship to one’s body and intuition is so sharp yet subtle. This is a connection I am just beginning to make at 33 with a therapist, so to see it written about so clearly in a book for teens just made my heart burst. This is just one of the many layers of Ada’s story, and one of the many ways young people may see themselves in her journey. I have so much love and admiration for everything Iloh is doing here.