Review by Booklist Review
By the time she's reached her junior year at St. Luke's Catholic school, Cassie Perera has perfected her life. She balances the demands of school, church, peers, and her Sri Lankan parents' expectations with a can-do attitude and a disciplined schedule--until the only black spot on her perfect record returns: Ben Yang, her childhood best friend who moved away to escape homophobic bullying that she caused. Now that he's back, she wants to make things right--only, he wants nothing to do with her. In a bold move, Cassie recruits the help of the public school's Gender and Sexuality Alliance to start an underground GSA at St. Luke's, hoping Ben will see how much she's changed. Yet as Cassie throws herself into creating this safe space, she struggles to resist her secret, messy feelings for girls. Cassie's emotional struggles, particularly how her queer identity fits with her religion, are handled with compassion and nuance. This affirming story about a teen learning to be true to herself without unrealistic expectations will be a balm for queer teens looking for stories of acceptance and belonging.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Estranged former friends Cassie and Ben haven't spoken since an incident in sixth grade: after they were caught swapping school uniforms, fearful Cassie insisted it was Ben's idea, prompting their classmates to target him with homophobic bullying until he left for ballet school. Cassie has spent the past four years "focused on being a good student, a good daughter, a good Catholic." But Ben transferring into St. Luke's, Cassie's conservative Catholic high school, throws a wrench in those plans. Upon meeting students from a neighboring public school and learning about their Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Cassie, knowing that St. Luke's lacks one of its own, forms an underground GSA for students from both schools to come together, hoping to use the organization to repair her relationship with Ben. As Cassie learns about queer culture and identity, she strives to promote diversity and inclusion at St. Luke's, contemplates the dynamic between religion and queerness, and contends with her own identity. Boteju (Bruised) employs grounded and informative prose to deliver empathetic examinations of acceptance, guilt, and the pressure of meeting unrealistic expectations in this tenderly affirming novel. Characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 13--up. (Apr.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up--Boteju's latest queer coming-of-age story offers a vulnerable look into the intersection of identity and religion. Cassie Perera, a straight-A student and textbook overachiever, has a secret: she's a lesbian. She's known since she outed her childhood best friend, Ben, and threw him under the bus to hide her own identity. And now that Ben has moved back? She must find a way to make it up to him and repair their friendship. After a chance encounter with another school's Gender & Sexuality Alliance (GSA), and their beautiful coleader Halle, Cassie thinks she's found just the way to do it. Cassie's internal struggle to embrace both her religion, which she loves, and her identity, which she wants to stop denying, is genuine and heartbreaking. Her fear of being rejected for parts of her that she can hide but not change, juxtaposed with the freedom and self-expression she finds among her new friends, artfully articulates the beauty of community. The supporting characters, Halle, Ben, and other members of their underground group, help show the lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ teens as anything but monolithic. VERDICT Cassie's eventual confrontation with the various parts of her life and the impact of her decisions make this book the perfect addition to any well-rounded YA collection.--Jolie Hanlon
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
To support her former best friend at their Catholic high school, a closeted queer teen in Canada starts a club for LGBTQ+ students. Cassie Perera and Ben Yang were best friends until sixth grade when, in a moment of fear and panic and hoping to deflect the homophobic bullying of racist classmates at their Catholic school, Cassie betrayed Ben. They see each other for the first time in years at the start of 11th grade when Ben, back from the National Ballet School in Toronto, arrives at St. Luke's. Cassie is determined to atone for her actions. After Cassie meets the diverse members of a local public school's Gender and Sexuality Alliance, she decides that forming an underground partnership to create a safe space for queer kids at St. Luke's is the perfect way to show Ben that she's changed. But navigating school, church, her Sri Lankan immigrant parents' expectations, and the confusing mess of feelings for girls that she's tried to push away for years tests her anxious desire to be perfect. Fast-paced and heartfelt, Boteju's latest examines the intersection of queerness and Catholicism with nuance and compassion while demonstrating the need for safe spaces in schools so that kids can be themselves. A sweet, emotional read affirming those who struggle to find a place within religions that profess to hate who they are.(Fiction. 13-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
