This Terrible True Thing

Somehow, when reading this, i was also listening to a period piece book about queerness and boarding schools and considering the future through the lens of homophobia and AIDS. it was very confusing to balance the two! That's just a fun fact about me.

This book made everyone in it complicated. It didn't let anyone off the hook and also didn't make anyone wholly terrible (at least not any major characters). The drawings were a nice addition but i didn't feel like they added too much to the book. The handwritten parts made me feel like i was reading a Baby-Sitters Club book, which was fine, but just like in the BSC books i had a hard time not just fully skipping over them. That might be a me-issue, but just some feedback.

I was moved by the experiences of the MC as a teenage girl who had many loved ones that were gay men, in the midst of the AIDS crisis. It looked at the fear, the silence, and also the deep love and connections and organizing that were happening. I think it's worth having as a window into that moment through the lens of a straight teenage girl. Good for HS libraries, and maybe middle school libraries as well.

NetGalley ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing me an ARC.

The format of this book was a challenge for me to get into. The handwritten sections are quite reminiscent of those YA books from the 90s I couldn't get enough of. The story overall was beautiful and told in a way that helps you feel like you were there with her, dealing with the AIDS epidemic along side her.

This is a beautifully written book. The mix of prose, poetry, and drawings added depth to the main character, Danielle. Your heart breaks as you experience the rawness of her pain as she watched her father die from AIDS. The stigma surrounding the disease and how it rapidly swept through the gay community meant that many died isolated and alone. I couldn't help but relate this to the recent COVID pandemic in which many loved ones passed away alone as their families were kept away. I bawled through the last portion of the book as Danielle, her brother, and her dad's friends surrounded her father with love during his last days. The power of this story is that it teaches empathy, acceptance, and the importance of using your talents to speak out against injustice. It's a must have for YA library collections.

I had no idea what I was in for when I started this book. I truly could not have been more naive about the contents of this story.
What I thought would be a fun collection of mixed media pieces turned out to be a moving story about coming-of-age, finding your voice, navigating life changing decisions, fighting injustice, and the love between a child and their parent.
I found Jenny Laden's writing to be perfectly aligned with the headspace of a teenage girl who is struggling, and learning, and making mistakes, and opening her eyes to the world around her. Laden makes you not just feel for our main character, Danielle, but she makes the reader feel like Danielle. The poetry interspersed throughout this book allows the reader to dive even deeper into Danielle's thoughts and feelings.
All of this takes place with the backdrop of an ongoing and horrifying health crisis. We see Danielle have her eyes open to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we see her start to learn about it, we see her begin to realize that she wants to use her voice and her art to spread information about HIV/AIDS, and we see as this disease directly impacts her life and her future.
Overall, I feel Laden has put together a wonderful story with great use of art and poetry throughout.

What a moving story.

Having drawn on her own experience, Layden creates a compelling story about the dark days of HIV, AIDS, and homophobia in the 90s. Danielle has to face the world in which people are so scared of the queer community that they don’t want to help them find a cure for this life threatening disease.
As a visual person, I really enjoyed the illustrations that went along with the narrative. However, I thought the poems along with the drawings were a little excessive. I found myself skipping those, but that’s because I’m not really into poetry.
Overall, I genuinely enjoyed this book. Tough topics were discussed and tears were shed.