Kapiti College Library

Notes

As endearing as it is humorous, this debut middle grade novel by Jess Callans is a tender, queer coming of age story about the courage it takes to find your own voice and choosing to justbe.
Puberty, AKA the ultimate biological predator, is driving a wedge between soon-to-be 13 year old Ollie Thompson and their lifelong friends. Too much of a girl for their neighborhood hockey team, but not girly enough for their boy-crazed BFF, Ollie doesnt know where they fit. And their usual ability to camouflage? Woefully disrupted.
When a school project asks them to write an essay on what it means to be a woman (if anyones got an answer, thatd be great), and one of their new friends is the target of bullying, Ollie is caught between the safety of fleeing from their own differences or confronting the risks of fighting to take their own path forward.
"Debut author Callans confiding tone leans into Ollies flummoxed first-person ruminations with rhetorical questions that probe moments of deep vulnerability and hope. Clear echoes of Judy Blume couple with themes of social adaptation that rely a bit heavily on analogies to the animal kingdom, but a range of readers should relate to Ollies sense of otherness. As Ollie puts it, 'Being yourself can hurt,' but awkward and self-aware stories like Ollies can help more tweens 'just be.'"Booklist, starred review