Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the e-ARC of Family Week!
5 / 5 ⭐

Family Week is a very cute - and very messy - tale of queer families colliding in the gayest town in America. Our young protags have to learn how to define family and find themselves during a weeklong vacation already jam-packed with traditions. Family Week is queer, trans, multiracial, and Jewish; within its pages, the concepts of gender, sexuality, and family are all expansive.

Family Week by Sarah Moon is a Queue contemporary Middle Grade set in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Twins Milo and Lina and their moms have celebrated Family Week with Avery and her dads and Mac and his mom every year for almost their whole lives. But everything is going to change this summer as the four get ready for big changes that come with growing up.

I rarely comment on covers, but given the political climate that I received this ARC in, I would be remiss not to. I believe the cover was finalized before November, but it seems like an act of defiance as of writing this on January 31st. It's unapologetically Queer with the trans and BIPOC-inclusive flag prominently displayed along with a transboy on the cover and a racially diverse cast of characters. There is no mistaking what this book is and, when I got approved, I actually cried tears of joy when I saw this cover again. I loved it before, but I love it so much more now.

This book had me tearing up multiple times because of how normalized Queerness is while still recognizing the political climate the book was written in. Milo is a transboy who started transitioning before the book starts. One of the reasons and he Lina’s mom's want him to go to an elite boarding school is because it will allow him to play soccer when bans on transgender athletes are keeping trans kids out of sports. The kids refer to themselves as ‘gaybies’ and make Queer jokes but, outside of Provincetown, they deal with being outsiders in a society with mostly heteronormative families.

Avery’s dads are in the middle of a divorce when the book opens and we get to see Avery's complicated relationship towards all of it. One of her dads is Bi/Pan-coded (the exact label is never used and it is instead explained as sexuality being a spectrum, which I felt was done more in a way to introduce that how we identify ourselves and our sexuality can change at any age and less out of reluctance to explicitly give it a label) and has started a new family with a female friend but still wants to be one of Avery's dads. Avery has a lot of complicated feelings around this and I thought it was very cool and important for kids to see that kids growing up in Queer houses can also struggle with divorce.

Lina is in the middle of her first crush and her own blossoming Queer identity (she's never given a label) as she is shown to be attracted to several girls and to want to start a relationship with her crush if her crush returns her feelings. Mac, meanwhile, is dealing with feeling inadequate next to Milo as Milo is a genius who has already skipped a grade and Mac almost had to repeat the seventh grade. I appreciated the journey that Mac and Milo had to go on to becoming friends again; their frustration with their own lives and each other were great foils for the target audience of middle school schoolers.

I would recommend this to young readers looking for books with a variety of Queer representation, readers looking for Middle Grade with Queer interracial relations and characters (particularly Jewish-Chinese and Black-Jewish) and those looking for shorter works affirming that trans children deserve as much love and consideration as any other child

It took a bit to get going, but once the story was properly underway this was a very sweet, heartwarming store about found family and growing up. Most of the child characters were fun and compelling (the only one who wasn't was Milo, whose interior monologue we see the least of) although most of the parents were exhausting in a way that seemed not quite right for kids of this age group. I'd be interested in knowing more about all four of these kids as they grow up - maybe future books?

This reminded me a bit of The Family Fletcher Takes Rhode Island and had the vibrant LGBTQIA+ community of Bunker's Zenobia July or Lukoff's Different Kinds of Fruit. The children had a number of typical problems (parents divorcing, having to move schools, sibling problems, personal identity, crushes) set against a summer vacation background.

Such a cute summer read! I loved the details about Provincetown and the Cape in general--it definitely made me want to visit. The four kids were very fleshed out, as were the secrets they kept from each other. I enjoyed the rapid fire bouncing between characters' perspectives. I also loved the Grey's Anatomy references! I devoured this in less than 24 hours and I'm excited to put it on summer-themed displays at the library in a few months.

Thank you NetGalley and Publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

I very much enjoyed this book. The writing was great and the characters were well developed. I hope to read more from this author in the future.

Set in Ptown during infamous family week, 4 friends spend their vacation week together, but things have changed this year and not for the better. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARc of this wonder middle school book set in my town.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This was a great read! Families are all different and that’s what makes us unique. I like that Milo stayed true to himself and for pushing Mac to open up. Sometimes it takes time to really find ourselves. The summer brought the kids closer together and some realized they’re more alike than they think. The kids thought it’d be the last summer of Family Week but they realized it wouldn’t be the last one.

Love the diverse points of view and the fun setting of Provincetown. Characters were believable and interesting. I would have liked to have the parents fleshed out a bit more. I was constantly checking back to see which kids went with which parents.

I received a free eARC of this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Family week by Sarah Moon demonstrates a reality for LGBT kids and kids from LGBT families, which is that their problems often are the same problems other kids face…with an added element.

So, Mac has a chance to go to a specialty gifted school, where his language gifts can be fully accommodated, but doesn’t want to leave his twin sister or his parents. This would be enough for any kid to deal with, but the fact that Mac is trans and would be able to play soccer at the private boarding school, but not at his local school just adds another twist.

Lina is worried about losing her brother…and is navigating her first lesbian crush,

Avery’s parents are getting a divorce. That’s hard enough for any kid to deal with, but the fact that one of Avery’s dads has left the other for a woman and Avery will soon have a new step sibling and her guilt because at some level, she always wondered what it would be like to have a mom, a dad, brothers, sisters….that’s an extra level.

Milo is failing 7th grade and was recently identified as twice exceptional (Kudos to the author for using 2e!,)


None of these kids’ problems are that they have same sex parents, or that they’re LGBT themselves (for those that are) They’re kids, navigating problems not uncommon for kids their age. And enjoying, but also struggling, with being with their friends that they see every summer, hoping to be understood, but also dealing with the fact that being a teen is harder than being a kid.


Family Week shows the value of community, of connections. Many kids will relate to that, too-ones who go every summer to the same camp, or see the same neighbors when they visit their grandparents. Those who don’t necessarily fit in all year, but have a place they belong will relate to WHY Provincetown family week is so important to Milo, Mac, Lina, and Avery-why being and feeling NORMAL is so powerful. So will parents, reading this book, because ultimately the parents are simply normal parents facing parenting problems and not necessarily making the best choices or fully hearing their kids.


And that is the amazing value of this book. Because not only is it going to help kids who have same sex parents, who are trans, who are gay feel seen, it will also help gifted kids, kids who feel like the less achieving sibling, kids with divorced or divorcing parents, kids who struggle in school, kids who are dealing with crushes, kids who have trouble taking to their parents feel seen. This book has one of the best examples of how giftedness can appear in different kids that I’ve EVER seen.


I look forward to adding this book to the recommended list for the class I teach on Giftedness/Twice Exceptionality. I look forward to adding it to my Little Free Library. It’s an excellent middle grade/middle school book for families to share.

Set in Provincetown, MA, Family Week is the story of three families that share a week together during the biggest celebration of lgbtq+ families in the country. Each of the kids in the story is going through typical preteen drama, for the most part, and it's sweet that they all have each other's backs. My favorite thing about this book, though, is reading how the kids communicate. I love, love, love that, throughout the story, the author gives examples of effective and positive communication between the kids with each other and with their parents in a natural, non-pushy way.
I would definitely recommend this book for kids in middle school and beyond. It's a fun read and the characters are instantly lovable.
Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read the free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a beautiful book about family both biological, and chosen and it is so funny, honest, and emotional. I can’t imagine anyone not relating to one of the characters in this book and I think this is really an important book that can and will inspire a lot of empathy and understanding. I absolutely loved it.