Book Riot Read Harder Challenge #6: Read a middle grade book with an LGBTQIA main character.

One might not expect a book about a kid trying to navigate their house that may or may not be haunted by their recently deceased uncle to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. And this is why I love these reading challenges.

This is a book that I never would have reached for on my own. Too often we limit ourselves when it comes to books. You may think that because you are thirty years old you will not find anything you’ll enjoy in the children’s section of your local library. And you would be wrong.

A good book is a good book. No one says that they are too old for Anne of Green Gables or Charlotte’s Web. The same is true for more recently released titles, like Too Bright To See.

Our story follows Bug and Moira the summer before they start middle school. Moira is afraid they won’t fit in with the older kids and wants to have makeovers so they can enter this new chapter as cooler versions of themselves. You can’t really blame her for this. I wish I had been a cooler version of myself before I started middle school. It would have saved me a lot of grief. But my parents, like most good parents, encouraged me to be my weird little self.

This book tackles this in a really great way and, in doing so, has one of the best quotes about this. “It’s hard to be yourself before you know who that is”. I imagine it’s even harder when you are being plagued by a ghost.