Review: Something to Say

Something to Say by Lisa Moore Ramee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Much like her debut novel, last year's A Good Kind of Trouble, Lisa Moore Ramee's Something to Say is a pretty sweet, and pretty important, MG contemporary with lots of on-point commentary about social justice. Especially in a year when Black Lives Matter, and protests of the kind seen in Ramee's first book, have come into sharper cultural focus than ever before - and, pretty presciently, this book deals with the potential renaming of a public SoCal institution away from John Wayne, since I'm pretty sure I saw a recent news headline about a petition to rename the airport in Orange County after his infamous pro-white supremacy quotes from the 70s resurfaced for at least the third time in as many years.

Compared to her first book, Ramee gives us a smaller cast of characters, and makes a greater focus on family than friendship. Jenae, even more so than Shayla, has so much social anxiety that naturally she winds up in a class where she has to get ready to perform a public speech - her worst fear of all. And she has some rather unusual coping mechanisms - namely, convincing herself that she can telepathically influence the decisions of others, though this also causes her some significant guilt when she fears that this superpower may have caused injury and illness to those she loves.

Also naturally, though - the kid she's partnered with on this project is her polar opposite in so many ways. Aubrey doesn't have a problem speaking his mind, he's highly visible (literally, with his flaming red hair)...but hey, they're both Danishes (fans of the super-popular Astrid Dane), which helps them start that inevitable friend bond. You love to see it, as the meme says.

Jenae's story is quite a rollercoaster emotionally, because in addition to the ongoing debate about renaming her school for Sylvia Mendez instead of John Wayne, she's got a lot of family issues as well. Her grandfather, Gee, falls ill - which made me tear up a bit, having lost two grandparents to severe illness in the last year. Her brother, Malcolm, can't play basketball right now because of a recent injury, on top of a breakup with his ex-girlfriend - whom Jenae texts behind his back because she misses having her around. Jenae...well, let's just say she makes mistakes, and lots of them, but that comes with the territory at that age. Ramee's got that gift for well-rounded protagonists down to a T, that's for sure. I just wish I could be hand-selling this book the way I used to do with A Good Kind of Trouble...

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