Twelve-year-old Will, who lives in Georgia, is looking forward to soccer season, even as he keeps thinking more about how members of the team have forced out a boy labeled a “wimp” and one who came out as bi. Will has other things on his mind, too—his ongoing stomach troubles. He is soon diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and forced to sit out the season as he waits for his medications to take effect.
This is a devastating blow. It changes his relationship with his well-meaning parents, whose concern for him and his illness feels at times smothering, and it distances him from his core friend group. A chance encounter with classmate Griffin, however, who likes video games and theater, makes him realize there might be other friends to be had. Griffin, however, has been the subject of harassment from Will’s teammates (one in particular) after he asked Will’s best friend Henry to a school dance. Distanced from his soccer friends, however, Will finds himself hanging out more with Griffin and joining him in an ongoing, multiplayer online game.
Will has also long been involved in his Baptist church’s youth group, and he is discomfited by some of the discussion there about acceptance of gay people. Yet he also wonders whether his disease could be a punishment from God for breaking a church window the previous year, and ends up seeking answers from the pastor about both that and about the church’s views on being gay. While this church and its pastor aren’t as virulently anti-LGBTQ as some Baptist denominations, the answers Will gets aren’t entirely satisfying, even though we ultimately get a small hopeful glimpse that the pastor is open to ways of being more inclusive.
Will must ultimately look within himself for his own truths even as his friendship with Griffin deepens and his illness makes him think more about what it means to be an outsider and how outsiders are often treated. Will’s relationships with both Griffin and Henry are also thoughtfully depicted, as Will tries to maintain his friendships with both of these two very different boys while also navigating another teammate’s homophobia.
Author Andrew Eliopulos, who was also diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in middle school, offers an informed and authentic look at living with Crohn’s as a young person. The introspective, first-person narrative shows Will working through his diagnosis, changing friendships, and own sense of self as he searches for answers. It’s clear fairly early that Will is questioning his own identity and attractions, but Eliopulos avoids the common middle-grade arc of making a crush the focus of the plot. Will’s arc is slower and subtler, yet feels satisfying and perfectly paced to the character.
Thoughtful and compelling, this is a recommended read.
For another middle-grade novel starring a queer protagonist with Crohn’s, try The Year My Life Went Down the Toilet. It has a different tone (and a different gender of protagonist), but is another title I recommend.
