I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I enjoyed it, on the other it felt like a really strange reading experience.

After finishing the book I read the authors note at the end where they mention that this book was originally meant to be a dystopian, and I can definitely see that reflected in the final product. There got to a certain point when the book felt like it left this reality and entered dystopian realms, not necessarily a bad thing, but it felt a little disjointed from the story that was trying to be told.

This story is about pain, and pain, and pain. The one saving grace that felt like a nice little 'well at least this one thing is going right for our main character' - yep you guessed it, turned into more pain. This is one reason that I felt the book wasn't paced well, right to the last few pages of the book it's all negative, bad, harsh, painful, then it felt like Oshiro was like 'whoops, gotta wrap this up in some way that isn't telling everyone life is pain and will never get better' so after having quite a chunky book for a contemporary being filled with bad experiences, right at the end a complete u turn happens that didn't seem realistic at all.

On the flip side, who am I to say what is realistic? I googled a weapon the police use in this book because I couldn't comprehend that it was a real thing but yep, turns out making people feel like they're on fire is an acceptable crowd control measure in the eyes of some. America really is wild. The one bit I did think was lacking realism though was

Spoiler

how the failed walk out happened. When a faceless, badge-less police officer hit a teacher in the face with a baton when he asked him to stop being so violent my suspension of disbelief was somewhat shattered

All in all I did...enjoy is the wrong word for this book, but I liked the story over all. The niggles aside (another worth mentioning is that there were too many characters introduced all at the same time. Moss has a massive group of friends - which while being a nice change from the obligatory one best friend / one secondary friend that most books go with- it did mean it was hard to differentiate who was who. They all got introduced in a big lump with pronouns, identities and characteristics in a paragraph, but after that only one or two get any more characterisations so they don't feel like individuals. It's great to have a diverse cast, but it did feel a teeny bit like box ticking.)

One thing I really liked in the first half was

Spoiler

the relationship between Moss and Javier and how it developed. I thought it was such a breath of fresh air against all the brutality and harshness surrounding Moss that he could have this gay relationship blossom - no homophobia, all parents accepted it, it was really great to see such openness and compassion in a book that doesn't let Black joy or happiness have too much page time. I hoped that would go throughout as the one place Moss could just be himself and enjoy life, but instead we got exactly the opposite.

The more I think about this book the more mixed up my feelings get, but it's definitely worth a read and I'm glad I finally got to it.