ARDEN GREY

Adolescents navigate abuse and asexuality.

Seattle high school junior Arden is dealing with a lot. Alongside her father and younger brother, she is struggling with her mother’s decision to leave. Her best friend, Jamie, has started dating Caroline, his first romantic relationship since transitioning. And Arden knows that she doesn’t want to be sexual with anyone, but she still has crushes on girls. This muted novel has a slow start and at first may seem to be a blend of familiar realistic young adult tropes with updated gender identities and sexual orientations, but it relentlessly builds tension as Arden carefully unpicks the realities of both her identity and the common experiences of unhealthy, abusive relationships. Most main characters are White, while new friend Marc, who reads as Black, provides another example of asexuality. Arden’s romantic interest is a pansexual Mexican American girl with precocious communication skills. Refreshingly, all the conflict involves realistic interpersonal dynamics, with transphobia and other oppressions taking a back seat. The patient unraveling of Arden’s friendships and relationships, as well as the neatly wrapped up resolution, feels simultaneously expected and deeply satisfying, and while neither of the abusers is given much complexity, the depictions of the dynamics involved can help readers identify toxic relationships in their own lives.

Quiet and powerful.