Morgan Flowers just wants to hide. Raised by their neurodivergent father, Morgan has grown up haunted by the absence of their mysterious mother Zoe, especially now, as they navigate their gender identity and the turmoil of first love. Their father Julian has raised Morgan with care, but he can’t quite fill the gap left by the dazzling and destructive Zoe, who fled to Europe on Morgan’s first birthday. And when Zoe is dumped by her girlfriend Brigid, she suddenly comes crashing back into Morgan and Julian’s lives, poised to disrupt the fragile peace they have so carefully cultivated.

Through it all, Julian and Brigid have become unlikely pen-pals and friends, united by the knowledge of what it’s like to love and lose Zoe; they both know that she hasn’t changed. Despite the red flags, Morgan is swiftly drawn into Zoe’s glittering orbit and into a series of harmful missteps, and Brigid may be the only link that can pull them back from the edge. A story of betrayal and trauma alongside queer love and resilience, ALL THE THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT is a celebration of and a reckoning with the power and unintentional pain of a thoroughly modern family.

I love when an author writes about hard hitting topics and includes representation, and actually does the research behind it. Feltman does a wonderful job at this. This story was beautiful and inclusive. WOW. For anyone who loves a character driven novel, this is one for you.

"and you should understand that her help isn't help. you should understand that trying only matters to a point."

What a beautiful story. I loved the complex and at times messy characters. I loved the questioning of gender and sexuality. I definitely bought a physical copy when it came out!

All the Things We Don't Talk About is such an incredible read. Amy Feltman has captured and shared an incredibly moving story with the world involving a beautiful family.

Julien, an autistic father who is also a single father, is raising his nonbinary teenager, Morgan. Zoe, Morgan's mother, abandoned Julien and Morgan, moving to Europe when Morgan was only a year old. Zoe had a girlfriend in Europe, Brigid. This story follows the lives of these four individuals, and all of the struggles they faced along the way. Feltman does an amazing job of rolling all of this together into a beautiful story. Highly recommended, and easily a 5 star read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

I loved how Morgan's gender identity was handled in this book, it was great having an amab nonbinary main character. I love how they're flawed and deeply human, and so like the teenager that they are. I loved the relationships between the characters and how messy and complex everything was, especially with Morgan and Zoe, and Julien and Zoe. There were a couple times where I was lost by the passage of time, in one paragraph we jumped forward months, and there were some relationships that I would have liked to see build over time instead of having them described to me. Overall I enjoyed this book and am interested in whatever Feltman writes in the future, especially if they continue writing LGBTQ characters.

“The sudden emergence of happiness — a happiness that felt wiggly, an eel that couldn’t be grasped within fingers – was cousin to Morgan’s general anxieties.”

This was an exciting premise — a traumatized nonbinary teenager with a neurodivergent father and a formerly absent mother navigating first love and family dynamics — that fizzled out about 25% through. I was disappointed it didn't stay strong, but that first part kept me propelled for a while. I honestly couldn't even tell you how it ended and I didn't even read it that long ago.

• Familial Bonds
• Addiction
• Autism Rep

This novel follows Morgan and their family through a school shooting, death, familial and relationship issues, addiction, and finding out who you are. This is viewed mostly through Morgan’s perspective, but we still see their parents accounts, as well as other loved ones. There is so much in this one book that I don’t know what to write other than: WHY HAVENT YOU READ THIS YET? Every single character was relatable in one way or another. This book needs to be read and discussed by everyone, especially families. I loved how honest it was. Before I go into a rant about how good it was and how I will be buying some copies for my family and friends, just read it!

#AllTheThingsWeDontTalkAbout #AmyFeltman #GrandCentralPublishing #NetGalley #eArc #ARC

<i>Thank you to Amy Feltman, and Grand Central Publishing for the digital ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.<i>

This book was so hard to read, but in the best of ways. The trauma this tiny family of two has endured is beyond comprehendable, and yet they carry on. The story starts with Morgan experiencing a potential school shooter, and follows them as they navigate what feels like a torturous year for a teenager - first love, abandoned mom shows back up, autistic meltdowns from their father ... it sounds so small when I say it, but it was beautiful and heartbreaking and overwhelming to read.

Told from a variety of perspectives, this novel should have been hard to follow - the perspective shifts each chapter, with no nod to who is now telling the story. However, I was so engrosed in the story itself that the perspective shifts didn't bother me. Most of the story is told by Morgan and/or their father. You get snippets from Morgan's mom, and also her sometimes-ex-lover.

The story doesn't wrap up neatly in a bow. You can tell the story isn't done, that these characters will continue to experience trauma, and are just beginning to learn to heal from it. But it ends hopeful, and I like that.

Ultimately, this title was too precious for me. I'm all for a book that covers social issues, however I felt that this one covered a little *too* much making it not quite heartfelt or specific enough for my liking-the tone felt very Lifetime movie, which to me means it covers the topics, but not deeply or emotionally enough.

I appreciated the sweet moments in the writing and felt that some of the observations were very spot on. New Adult is not a genre I'm super familiar with and I do wonder if the targeted age range contributed to some of the over eagerness that I felt in the writing.

I believe that a young adult who is still learning to understand empathy and seeing beyond how people present on the surface could have a lot to gain from reading this title-perhaps as a 34 year old woman I am simply not the ideal audience.

This novel alternates between the perspectives of Morgan, a gender non-binary high school student; Julian, Morgan’s dad who is neurodiverse; Zoe, Morgan’s mon who abandoned Morgan and Julian when Morgan was young and is an alcoholic; and occasionally Bridget, Zoe’s on again/off again partner.

There was a lot going on in this book, maybe a little too much - I think it maybe would have been stronger if it focused on just Morgan and Julian’s perspectives - especially because I thought their stories were more interesting. I enjoyed the representation of having a gender non-binary and neurodiverse father and child and thought both were thoughtfully and interestingly portrayed. The writing was also really good and I would definitely read another book by Amy Feltman.

Side note - the setting of this book felt odd as it was ostensibly set in NYC but I couldn’t tell at all where Julian and Morgan were supposed to live - was it far uptown Manhattan, another borough, a suburb? At times it seemed like any/all of these which confused me. Minor quibble but it really distracted me!

Anyway, overall while not perfect, it really kept me reading despite being a quiet book, and was a solid read which I would recommend to fans of dysfunctional family dramas.

3.75 stars

Thank you for the opportunity to review this unique book. I appreciated that the MC was non- binary as that provided an interesting perspective. His father’s autism was also presented well. However, I was unable to connect to the characters and for that reason, the story just couldn’t hold my interest. I ended up DNF ing the book at the 50% mark, though I did skip ahead to read the final few pages (which didn’t offer much in the way of satisfactory resolution)

The beginning of this book threw me off for awhile and made it hard to feel like I was in the right head space for it, but when I got past the school shooting scene, I fell in love with the characters navigating their differences in a cisnormative neurotypical world. As a nonbinary autistic myself, I loved seeing that representation handled with softness.

All the Things We Don’t Talk about by @amyfeltmanwrites -

Morgan Flowers is a typical teenager. That is, Morgan is a gender non-conforming teenager whose alcoholic, free-spirit mother, Zoe, left when they were just a baby, leaving Morgan to be raised by their neurodivergent dad, Julian, and up until her death, their grandmother.

Morgan and Julian had found balance in boundaries and repetition, and Morgan was experiencing their first love. Then Zoe comes crashing back into their lives after her breakup with Brigid, and Morgan is intrigued at the prospect of having their mom back in their life again. Brigid and Julian long ago became unlikely penpals after bonding over their shared heartbreak caused by Zoe’s drinking and her non-conforming lifestyle, and Brigid tries to help Julian navigate the fallout of Zoe’s return to Morgan and Julian’s lives, but Zoe’s problems prove to be a disaster for everyone involved.

There is clearly a lot going on in this story but the author did a great job of weaving a tale that portrays a tragically beautiful story of a modern family.

Thanks to @netgalley for the ARC copy of #AllTheThingsWeDontTalkAbout by Amy Feltman. #lgtbq #lgbtq2ia #pride #neurodivergent #gendernonconfirming #nonbinary #yabooks #youngadultfiction #queer #queerbookclub #queerbookstagram

Feltman’s narrative provides a multidimensional family portrait of a nonbinary teen’s coming-of-age and complicated family drama. The author provides readers with a candid, deeply human look at navigating gender identity and a first romance through the eyes of adolescence. While the narrative is, at times verbose, the dynamic relationships and the mash up of things like honesty, kindness, and humor make for a exceptional tale. In the end, the story brings a testament to empathy and enduring love.

(3.5 rounded up to a 4)

All the Things We Don't Talk About is a queer contemporary fiction novel by Amy Feltman. The ebook version is 320 pages. We follow our four main characters with third-person points-of-view.

Morgan is a nonbinary teen raised by their single autistic father, Julien. Their mother, Zoe, has been out of the picture since she fled to Europe on Morgan's first birthday. Zoe was just dumped by her on-again-off-again girlfriend Brigid, so she decides on a whim to return to the States. Over the years, Julian and Brigid became pen-pals and friends who commiserated over loving and losing Zoe multiple times.

This was a really cool premise, but it dragged for me at times. Zoe was a very unlikeable character for many reasons and I vastly preferred things when we were following either Julien or Morgan's perspective. I was pleased with all of the queer representation in this book, but I do struggle with trauma porn queer lit and really would love to see more happy stories with queer characters.

I noted this in the content warnings below, but this book starts off with an attempted school shooting so please be aware of this before you pick it up.

Tropes in this book include: dysfunctional family, nonbinary main character, bisexual main character, autistic main character

CW: absent parent, drug and alcohol abuse, addiction, driving under the influence, underage drinking, school shooting (mentioned)

Special thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book for me to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

I read All the Things We Don't Talk About as my book club's June pick, and I was very thankful to have a group to discuss this book with. The book dives into complex and at times heavy topics, so it made for a great discussion. This is the type of book we need more of, as it helps us reckon with the societal norms we have engrained and opens us up to changing how we view the world.

I loved Julian's character and felt he was wonderfully written. I think the author also did a great job fleshing out the other characters in this novel, making it an enjoyable read.

This book was really difficult for me, personally, to get through, due to Trauma, You Know, of being part of a really dysfunctional family. But it’s also a story of wild interpersonal relationships, of existing around charismatic but ultimately destructive people (Zoe is the Caroline Calloway of this book and also this family), of betrayal and grief and having something fundamentally missing and trying to fill that. And ultimately, it’s a queer story about family love and acceptance. Five stars.

I really struggled to read this book as it opens with an attempted school shooting. The whole thing has Big Sad Energy too and "literary" queerness these days is also a hard sell for me. My queerness is under attack and I want joy in my fiction not trauma.

That said, I think Feltman is doing interesting character work here and I may try again when I’m in a different headspace.

I received a digital copy of this book for review from the publisher.