Trigger Warnings: Hate crime, mental health, depictions of self harm, colorism

In this middle grade novel in verse, thirteen-year-old Rain is sad all the time and she’s been keeping it a secret from everyone. She hates the way she looks and feels inferior to her best friend, Nara who seems to be perfect. When Xander, Rain’s older brother and her personal superhero is beat up at a frat party during a college visit, things turn even darker. Xander stops talking to everyone, including Rain, who doesn’t know where to turn. When Rain’s favorite teacher invites her to an after-school program, Circle Group, Rain finds new friends and the courage to help both herself and her family.

This would be a good starter for someone who may be new to novel in verse as to me, the only difference was the formatting. Everything about this book flowed and kept me interested and emotional. Courtne Comrie does an amazing job at tackling everything a thirteen-year-old girl can struggle with: body issues, a best friend who she doesn’t click with anymore, anxiety and depression. Comrie showed just how much Rain was hiding from everyone by showing her describing her self-doubts and then the next page would show her joking around with someone.

Another thing I would like to applaud Comrie on was how Rain and her family handled therapy. It’s a scary thing to get started and there definitely was hesitance on Rain’s part to get it started, but she did, and then she got her family involved too. I remember how much of a taboo therapy and talking about mental health was as I was growing up. I’m so happy children and teens have the representation nowadays to not be ashamed to ask for help when needed.

I’m going to be highly recommending this book to not only middle schoolers, but teens and adults too. This is a beautifully written story about a young girl and her family coming out of the dark times together and I think it’s a story everyone will be able to take something out of. ( )

Another super intense 2023 Lone Star novel in verse.

Rain struggles with her inner messaging despite the support and love of her brother and her mom. When she looks in the mirror, she only hears: "You're ugly. You're not good enough. You're worthless. Nobody likes you. Only bad things will happen" (18). Her brother works so hard in hopes of helping the family. He earned a scholarship to a private school where he's pretty much the only black person. The school is an hour away, so he's gone a lot, especially considering he plays sports. Rain and Xander's mom has always told him, "You can do it." He was never allowed to say "can't." When he's home, he helps Rain with her homework, checks on her, and makes sure she eats and gets all she needs. They used to live in a shelter, so now that they have an apartment, mom works a lot of hours, which means Rain is alone a lot. She can fall into her negative matra very easily. Even at school where her best friend Nara also attends, Rain hears these negative sentences because Nara talks down to Rain. They've been friends for so long that Rain doesn't realize that Nara isn't very nice, and it might be time to move on to new friendships.

Warning. Spoilers do appear in the next few paragraphs.

Rain doesn't realize that she needs help, barely making it day by day trying to change little things in hopes of being more like Nara: pretty. You also meet other teachers and characters at school who are very important to the story after the trauma occurs. Xander visits a college with his good friend from school one weekend where Xander gets beat up so badly that the video goes viral. Where was his friend Zach? Xander needs time to recover, more mentally than physically although his physical injuries are extensive. He's not the old Xander. Mom must attend work, leaving Rain alone even more. Mom is either at work or at the hospital or talking to the detectives and a lawyer at home. Rain can't bring herself to visit Xander. She spirals downward. After seeing how Nara handles this terrible situation with Xander, Rain knows that they are no longer friends. A kind teacher reaches out, as well as two students. It's these people who help Rain and who, ultimately, help her whole family.

I began by saying this novel is intense. It is! Once again, in this political climate, I feel I must address an issue. The characters are black and poor. The brother gets beat up by white college students. This is NOT a book hating white people; it's not a book to make white people feel bad about being white. It's really about how the realities of life affect us. They are poor, which is very stressful mentally. Here is a single woman working two jobs to help her children. They all love and support each other. There's no abuse, although there is an absent father who occasionally shows up, so he's not dependable. It's hard moving up--getting out of this situation. She wants the best for her children, as most good parents do. The only thing the book indicates is that they want the people who hurt Xander to be punished. That's it. All people would. One character asks Xander if he feels he was attacked for being black. He says that he doesn't know. There are many facts that make the motivation unknown. I'm leaving the story of Rain for you to uncover, as the novel is about her, and her story is worth reading. In the end, Xander's white friend and black friends get to know each other. If anything, the message is that people need to help one another by getting to know one another. Rain's new friends, her counselor, and her teacher take the time to know Rain and help her be who she is. This help extends to mom and Xander who get the same choice. Depression is a real issue for people of all ages and life can make depression harder. It's only when people help one another that there's hope for everyone. ( )