Combine the madcap imagination of Alice in Wonderland, the wild children of Peter Pan, and the dark edges of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and you might get something akin to this novel, an adventure (fable? allegory?) starring an original and compelling queer protagonist. (Don’t call him a hero.)
The gender creative and neurodivergent-coded Clementine knows that “Clementine’s a boy’s name if a boy has it. And I’m a boy. And I have it.” He also has the ability to speak with “angels,” what others might call monsters, living in the nearby woods. He knows he doesn’t fit in with his seventh grade class; his plan for school is to “Be imaginary…. silent and invisible.”
When a mysterious boy named Bug breaks into his room one night, though, warning him about the monsters in the woods, Clementine sees a potential friend—and is soon whisked off on wild, magical adventures with Bug, friend Anise, and Anise’s sister Sea and cousin Cricket. As he starts to delve into whether their adventures are real, though, he starts to uncover secrets that tie in to the disappearance of his older sister Persimmon. And when he’s offered a dark bargain to change the world, he must weigh the cost, including his friendship with (and crush on) Bug.
A plot summary hardly does justice to the tale, though, which offers an imaginative, darkly entertaining, and pointed look at what makes a hero, villain, or monster, the experience of growing up queer in today’s world, and the cost of creating change. “A boy in a dress can be a joke, or a tragedy, or a villain,” Clementine believes, and since he refuses to be either of the first two, villain it is. But he also knows that role isn’t entirely of his choosing, saying, “I feel like even if I always try to be kind, and patient with other people, and apologize when I’m wrong, I’ll still grow up to be a monster. Because I’m not the one who decides if I’m a ‘monster.’ That’s something other people decide about you,” which feels like as powerful and poignant a comment an observation about queer youth as any I’ve seen. And author Noah Corey also stresses that platitudes about things getting better in the future may be small comfort. “Someday’s not good enough. I’m eleven. Eleven. Someday is too far away,” Clementine insists. The wildly imaginative setting somehow makes these observations about the real world even more impactful.
Despite the grim observations, though, there is a sense of, well … hopefulness about the story. It’s not a saccharine hopefulness that all will suddenly become better, though, but rather a hopefulness rooted in Clementine’s own strength and sense of self.
Middle grade readers who appreciate dark, funny tales with some horror elements should love this book—but it’s one that even older and grown readers may appreciate, too. (And I want to see someone write an academic piece exploring how both this title and Kyle Lukoff’s A World Worth Saving look at monsters, queerness, and changing the world.) Highly recommended; hold on for the ride.
Content warning: Parental transphobia and verbal abuse.
Clementine, Bug, and Anise read as White; Cricket has brown skin and curly, dark brown hair. Several characters are cued as trans, both boys and girls; I’ll refrain from naming them in order to avoid spoilers.
