Rick Riordan's Reviews > All Boys Aren’t Blue

I read this a while back, but I suppose I needed some time to process what I'd experienced. Johnson writes with clarity and power about their experience growing as a Queer Black child in New Jersey, not knowing where they fit in and wishing, as they say themselves, that they had a book like this one to provide some guidance, or at least reassurance, that life would get better, and that there was a path to better acceptance and happiness. The book is structured in a series of short, sharply rendered personal essays, making this a quick and compelling read. Their autobiographical stories are at turns beautiful, sad, painful and joyful, much like life itself. And while this book will be so meaningful to many LGBTQIA+ youth, looking for understanding and representation in an often cruel world, it is also completely relatable to any young reader who has ever felt like they didn't belong, or weren't understood by family or peers. Highly recommended!