Alex’s neurodivergence isn’t clearly specified on the pages, but many readers will deeply resonate with the ways he’s been continually underestimated and infantilized, with people who “celebrate / the regular stuff” and are concerned that standard classes and extracurriculars will be “too much” for him. Alex fights and persists to be heard, even when fellow students disparage him, reminding readers and parents alike that change is possible and worth fighting for. I also love the generational neurodivergence represented in this story.

I personally struggled with the lack of capitalization and punctuation syntactically. It caused confusion at times while reading. Is the implication that this is how Alex writes, and so we are more directly in his voice? I wondered the function of this style. But generally, I enjoyed this story and this rep.

This is a sweet middle grade novel in verse. I loved the representation of a ND main character and the way Alex continued to advocate for himself throughout the book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.