On Ash’s first week of middle school, a teacher gives the class an assignment she can’t complete: make a family tree. Ash has been in foster care since she was four, after her mother was jailed for making meth. She’s been bounced from home to home, even from the one family she thought might adopt her. Now, she’s living with Gladys, who only seems to want her for the stipend this earns her. And although Gladys isn’t supposed to let anyone else live with them, she can’t say no to her do-nothing grown son Jordan and his “baby mama” (whom he physically abuses) and infant.
School isn’t much better for Ash, where she gets harassed and bullied for her masculine appearance. Her one friend, the kind and quirky Gentry, has also lost his mother, but lives with his caring dad. Cool girl Joss seems to want to make friends, but Ash isn’t sure why; Joss is closed-mouthed about her own personal life. Ash retreats into herself and her art, finding comfort in drawing a comic with herself as the hero.
As Jordan’s unpredictable rage and abusive behavior escalate, however, Ash doesn’t know where to turn. She has no faith in the foster care system not to put her someplace worse. She doesn’t trust the teachers who seem to be offering her support. She’s not sure her friends will understand. Can she overcome the self-protective instincts that have served her well, but now prevent her from getting the assistance she needs?
Author Gia Gordon doesn’t flinch from showing the impact of a broken foster care system on the children within it. Gordon has also brilliantly created other characters who are complex and not always what they seem on the surface. Their interactions, assumptions, and reconsiderations about each other feel authentic, and Gordon allows them each to evolve personally and with respect to each other.
Ash isn’t labeled as queer, exactly, although she has a definitive masculine gender expression and indicates at one point that it could be possible for her to have a crush on a girl. Another significant character has two dads, one of whom had been in foster care as a child, but to say more would be to reveal spoilers.
Heartbreaking and heart mending. A highly recommended read.
Ash and Gentry are White, and Joss is Latina.
