THE DOUGHNUT CLUB

Quinn’s summer is transformed when she learns surprising news from her moms.

En route to their annual seaside holiday, 12-year-old Quinn’s mothers drop some big news: They’ve learned, from a website that connects families formed through donor conception, of the existence of 16 kids born to parents who used the same donor that Quinn and her 10-year-old brother share (Mom, who’s white, is the biological mother of pale, red-haired, green-eyed Quinn, while brown-skinned Mama is Olly’s biological mother). Quinn secretly logs into the website and, posing as Mom, initiates contact with a nearby family. She’s also secretly pleased to have broken her wrist—now she’s exempt from the frenzy of physical activities the rest of her “action-obsessed family” enjoys. Instead, she can draw and take walks; she even makes a new friend in an elderly man named Fred. Unfortunately, 13-year-old bully Monika Webber, whose family also summers at the same hotel, is hanging around. Quinn, who feels out of place in her family, hopes that one of her donor siblings will be more like her, so she’s appalled to find clues that make her suspect Monika may actually be her half sister. Things come to a head when Olly goes missing, and Quinn is pushed to new limits as she wrestles with concepts of family. Despite some two-dimensional characterization and a conclusion that ties things up too neatly, this novel fills an important space in queer middle-grade fiction.

A relatable dive into the world of donor conception.