It’s the summer between middle school and high school, and Aiden Navarro is spending it at camp with his boy scout troop. He’s navigating relationships with family, friends, bullies, and a crush he struggles to admit to himself.
This book takes you back to when you were in middle school and the stakes feel so impossibly high. When you can’t shake relentless fear that everyone is judging you and that one wrong move on your part could make you forever a social outcast, all the while you’re just trying to figure who you are in the first place. It’s heartbreaking to read at times because you wanna give Aiden a hug and tell him that the stakes won’t always feel this high, that there is a life beyond school, and that he deserves to be loved and cherished exactly as he is.
The art style is also incredible. It’s mostly in shades of black, white, and grey, but in moments of intense emotion you’ll find splashes of bright orange lighting up the page. I love how intentional the use of color is and how the art and the narrative perfectly complement each other.
This book is real and sad and happy and beautiful and I loved it.
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