Review: A Good Kind of Trouble

A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember meeting this author for a brief moment as she was buying Tyler Johnson Was Here, and with her book only a few days away from its launch party (which I will sadly have to miss due to commitments at my other job), I was very happy to see an ARC available in a box in the office at work. So I've taken it for a quick weekend read and review, and let me tell you, though MG isn't quite my bread and butter like YA, this is already one of the best books of the year right here.


Not unlike Tyler Johnson, it's a very social-justice-themed book in which the blurb and promo materials really play up the activism angle, but the book doesn't really get into Shay getting into the Black Lives Matter cause until well into the story. Both before and after the protest that catalyzes Shay really getting into action, however, the book has a very slice-of-life quality, following Shay's seventh-grade year from beginning to end, roughly, warts and all. It's fitting that this point in her life, when she's growing out of childhood officially, is when she starts making some mature changes in her life. Namely, stepping out of her comfort zone to step up for what's right in the world.

And in the meantime, of course, she has all these rampant worries so common at her age. Do the boys she likes, like her too? Well, it's very hard to say, especially when one of these boys kisses her only on a dare - and the book lingers long on that storyline as an exploration of the damage that lack of consent and an endlessly grist-hungry rumor mill can do. How can she judge her beauty? Sure, she's got acne, and a forehead whose size she's super insecure about. But of course there's inner beauty, and Shay's got tons of that with her charming personality.

And then, of course, there's the ever-shifting dynamics of Shay's friendship with Isabella and Julia - the United Nations, so named because all three are of different cultural backgrounds. All three challenge a lot of the stereotypes associated with their respective ethnic groups - Isabella being Puerto Rican, NOT Mexican as is so commonly assumed of Latinx people, especially in California (I had a high school classmate, Nicaraguan, who wrote an AP English essay on that very subject); Julia being Japanese, but most certainly not the sweet and quiet and demure stereotype of East Asian girls; and Shay, who's often accused of not being Black enough because she doesn't have many Black friends and isn't much of an activist (not at first, anyway.)

In this debut, Lisa Moore Ramee has delivered one of the sweetest, funniest, and most thought-provoking books I've read in quite a while. All at once, because how else do you write a good story?

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