We hear and have thoughts on anti vaxers, but I don’t know if any of us tho k about the kids and how they feel. I enjoyed the commons themes of high school and love and belonging in this very different light. There were a few cliches and I had a small issue with a spoiler, but otherwise, pretty good. This will definitely go in my classroom library.

Works a lot better as a novel for a YA audience than as one read by an adult who likes YA. I wanted to read this based on the back cover copy, where a teenager with new age, organic, hippie parents catches measles and goes on a battle for medical emancipation. There's not much legal battle here, it focuses much more on her meeting a boy and forming a relationship with him and friendships amongst a peer group, while also exploring the tension of what Juniper wants for herself versus what her parents want for her. All great YA novel stuff.

For me, the first hurdle is right on the back of the book, that she catches measles and there are disastrous consequences. [ So there is an infant death pretty quickly in the book, and once I realized it was the baby, like the moment the baby was introduced, I read quickly through that because I am just not emotionally set for that. (hide spoiler)] Then, I truly have an issue with how the parents were portrayed. They are extremely sympathetic. Like, even for parents in a YA book, where often reasonable parenting is treated as draconian. In some circumstances, it would be considered skillful for an author to make us sympathize with characters who are villains, but here it feels sort of irresponsible? Sadly, in the US today there are more and more people who agree with the Jade's viewpoints and this "both sides" stuff is dangerous. The criticism of Juniper's parents is pretty much confined to being stubborn and not listening to their kids. Not even a discussion of how they want the kids to "think for themselves" and then throw tantrums as soon as Juniper has differing opinions than them.

Criticizing mob mentality, especially against children, is important, but this is a YA novel that could reach so many suburban children whose parents sell MLM essential oils and diffuse in a dangerous way around pets and babies, who put oils directly on skin without a carrier oil, and even ingest them (because MLM oils are "so pure!" they think this is safe, despite the medical evidence otherwise) and they really could use something that says parents are not infallible and them doing things because they love you and want to protect you doesn't make them automatically right.

Nico's peanut allergy and bee sting allergy are slightly interesting because Juniper recognizes how wonderful the medical technology of an epipen is, but I wonder what the story would look like if there was a cancer survivor in the film club, so she couldn't be welcomed in as easily? Or someone who had a rare vaccine reaction and couldn't be up to date and truly needed herd immunity to protect them?

The book ends pretty abruptly, with the court decision, and the promise that there will be ramifications in Juniper's relationships, but then the consequences don't get to be explored. The toddler-like tantrums of her parents ignoring her and not speaking to her and not setting a place at the dinner table for her is straight up emotional abuse and I found it difficult for the book to not have a hard stance that this is wrong, even if it is mostly from Juniper's point of view. This all could make for some great discussion in a teen book group, but I'm wary of a teen reading it on their own without someone to discuss it critically with.