This is such a cute book. And I mean that in the best possible way. It's everything I love about MG fiction. When I say it's cute, I don't mean it's full of fluffy themes, because it isn't. It's actually really complex, and I love it all the more for that.

Maggie has just started middle school. One of her best friends is slowly pulling away from her, and sometimes she calls her grandma and finds that her grandma doesn't remember her. But it's ok, because she has the perfect family. It's just her, her mum and dad. That is until a half-brother she didn't know existed shows up on her doorstep, and her life turns upside-down.

Yes, there's a lot going on in this book. But it never felt like too much. The truth is, life is complicated. And it's complicated whether you're twelve or twenty or forty. It's unreasonable to expect middle grade fiction not to reflect the complexity of life. Kids need to see themselves in books, and I'm sure a lot of them will identify at least in some way with Maggie's story.

I love Maggie as a narrator. She's kind of dorky. She goes to Harry Potter summer camp and she loves interior design. She's not the most popular person in the world, but she has friends who she spends time with at school. She can also be a little selfish and concerned with her own problems, though ultimately, she has a good heart. Even though she's dealing with a lot, and is unhappy about it, she still manages to be a fun narrator and I found myself laughing out loud when reading.

At first, she struggles to come to terms with the fact that she has a brother and she isn't always kind to Tony. But it was really nice getting to see her figure out how to build a relationship with him and welcome him as part of her family.

I really love the amount of character growth Maggie experiences. Yes, she's still the same slightly dorky, design loving girl she always was. But she is forced to see that her ideas aren't always right, and that she can compromise and accept that perfection isn't always the goal.

4.5/5 stars.

This is such a good middle-grade story! I really love when middle-grade authors choose to tackle hard-hitting topics in their books, and Marcy Campbell was able to include not just one of these topics, but three! Now, taking on three different topics in one story could have been a downfall for this book, since it can get tricky to give each topic the attention that it deserves, but I honestly think all three topics were handled well here.

This novel covers 1. parental affairs, divorce, and secret half-siblings, 2. drug abuse, addiction, and rehab, and 3. mental illness (Alzheimer's), which might seem like a lot for a middle-grade story, but the reality is that many children face these obstacles in their real lives... My own parents divorced when I was young, and my grandfather also faced memory loss in his final years. I think it is important for kids to understand that not every family is picture-perfect, and that you never truly know what someone else is experiencing at home.

I really enjoyed the interior design element of the story as well. Although I do feel that Maggie could sometimes get a bit carried away with her hobby, I like that she was given an outlet that helped her relieve stress in a fun way, and also the potential for a lasting career path.

The one thing that I wish the story had dived deeper into is the relationship between Maggie and her friends, Rachel and Olive. I feel that Maggie often takes her friendship with Olive for granted, and there was never a super clear discussion of how she could improve as a friend. Additionally, in my opinion, her friendship with Rachel seemed somewhat half-developed or glossed over for a lot of the story. I think a clearer direction might have been including a conversation of friends naturally growing apart from each other, but the author did provide a bit of clarity for their friendship toward the end of the novel, so I did appreciate that.

Other than that, my only other criticism is that I think the actions that Maggie and Tony take towards the ending were slightly far-fetched, but I liked how the book itself was wrapped up. Overall, if you like hard-hitting middle-grade, definitely pick this one up when it's released!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my ARC of this book.