Little & Lion

I really wanted to love this book and just didn't. I think that this book is probably great for people going through similar struggles or from similar backgrounds, but as an average white girl reader looking to expand her horizons and read about perspectives different from my own, I think I would have appreciated it if the author had honed in on an issue or two. For me, it felt very disjointed because there were so many moving parts. I had trouble keeping track of all the issues and nothing felt genuinely central. The protagonist is a teenage black girl who lives with her mom and a white not-actually-stepdad-because-they-never-got married, is a converted Jew, is bisexual, had a lesbian experience (and also a bigoted backlash) at a New England boarding school, has a bipolar brother, is interested in a girl who had an abortion and was kicked out by her family, and is also interested in a half-black, half-Korean guy she's known for her whole life who has a rare disease. Literally any single one of these would fill an entire (and absorbing) book. It was too much for me to keep track of and as a result I didn't really care that much. I wanted to care a lot about her relationship with her brother, her figuring out her own identity, her relationship with Emil, but I just couldn't because there was no focus. It was just too much for me. Having said that! I completely believe that people exactly like this exist and that they probably love the heck out of this book and I support that. I'm sure there are lots of people who really love and appreciate this book. I guess I'm just not the right audience. I'm still glad I read it.