Thirteen-year-old Abraham “Ham” Hudson has been homeschooled by his pastor mother, but begins attending a public middle school after his mother has some stress-related health issues. He’s supported by family friend Deuce, an ex-con (whom we later learn is gay) who goes running with Ham, and by Fey, a new girl in the neighborhood. He tries to fit in at school, but doesn’t quite know how, and gets teased by some of the other kids. Living in a church and having a cat who follows him to school don’t help.
Ham tries out for the running team, however, and soon develops a rivalry with one of the girls on the team, which leads to some problematic and dangerous situations. One bright spark of light, however, is a budding friendship with a boy named Micah. Micah is cool, charming, and unexpectedly friendly. Ham gradually develops a crush on him—but is Micah really what he seems? Spoiler alert: It turns out that Micah has ulterior motives and has been manipulating the naive Ham in many ways. Readers will have likely picked up on this, however, because Ham has hinted since the first chapter that he (Ham) gets in serious trouble involving the police. Ham is sweet and innocent, though, and we sense from the start that the trouble was not of his own making (or at least not entirely).
Ham is almost too innocent, however—or maybe he’s just desperate to feel like he belongs. He is also adopted, after having been left in the Nativity manger of his mother’s church one Christmas, a point that serves to underscore his sense of being an outsider, but feels heavy handed. And the manipulating Micah treads dangerously close to old tropes about queer people luring young innocents—though at the end, it is entirely unclear if Micah is actually queer; it feels more like he was only pretending in order to get at Ham. Still, Ham is a likeable narrator and many will empathize with his desire to both fit in and discover more about who he is—and many readers will benefit from the cautionary aspects of the tale, for people like Micah unfortunately do exist. Luckily for Ham, he realizes Micah’s ploys in the end with help (despite some frustration) from his other friends. One senses that he’ll be all right. If only all stories had such happy endings.
