content warnings: (mentions of) leukemia, perceived homophobia
representation: lesbian main character, side wlw character, side black lesbian character, minor bisexual latina character, minor f/f relationship

This has immediately sky-rocketed to my top 5 books of the year (no joke, this will be fighting with Alice Oseman's books for the top spot). It was so beautiful, full of raw emotion, without ever losing the innocence that so clearly cements it as a perfect middle-grade. I genuinely hope that every primary/elementary school gets this book because this is going to be so important for queer kids to read.

The tone of this was so perfect. It's middle grade and as I mentioned there's this wide-eyed innocence to it because we're seeing the world through Ivy's eyes, but the book never becomes too silly and something will gut-punch you every few pages because that's how damn emotionally impactful this was. This is in large part due to how perfect Ashley Herring Blake's writing was.

Despite being seventeen years old, I don't think I've ever related to a character harder than I have Ivy Aberdeen. Feeling misunderstood and forgotten is something I experience a lot, and seeing Ivy talking about the way she feels (whether she's speaking to someone or it's internal monologue) made me tear up on several occasions.

All the other characters were fabulous as well. Layla, who I went from wanting to punch to wanting a big sister just like her (yes, she's a year younger than me but the point still stands); Robin, who's easily my second favourite character in the whole book; June, who was such a cute little ball of energetic sunshine the whole time; Taryn, who I was iffy on at first but grew to love; and all the other characters were also amazing, I just can't be bothered to list them all.

I also really liked how unapologetically female this story was, as it should be. It's about a lesbian discovering who she is with the help (and sometimes hindrance) of other women, both straight and queer, and I really appreciated that.

All in all, this is one of my new favourite books of all time, and even though I know it will be wildly different in tone I'm really excited to read Girl Made of Stars, which I currently have on hold at the library.