4 stars

Another middle grade that revives my cold, dead heart. :')

While I was reading this, I happened to watch a video about surveillance of womanhood and gender performance, which happened to tie into the themes of this book really well. Basically, this story is the intersection of a lot of my interests, so of course I loved it.

I think this book will make a lot of readers feel seen, which is one of the things I love most about literature, and it's especially important in middle grade stories. Watching Bug's journey through self-discovery is so rewarding and just wholesome.

Lukoff's writing and the way he captures emotion is lovely, and I really enjoyed the added speculative elements with the ghosts. I wish there had been more ghosty stuff, actually, as well as more development of the side characters. But this is a debut novel, so I'm really excited to see what else Lukoff writes in the future.