What a touching, necessary coming-of-age story from a perspective that has been conspicuously missing from YA shelves. I love the thoroughly and uniquely diverse representation, exploring intersectional identities within the south Asian diaspora, as well as depictions of queer parenting, multicultural food (always my favourite part!) and multilingual families.

Suraya's experience, or lack thereof, with romantic and sexual partners was so refreshing and felt grounded in reality. The clear conversations about consent and boundaries are so important, in glad they're given so much space in this book. Similarly, the heartbreak of learning that some people don't love the version of you that exists, is a very real thing. While the ending is supposed to be ambiguous, I think, to me it felt like Blessing was getting off a bit easy but that's just a me thing!

The formatting of the verse is effective, and the interwoven illustrations only add to this. A real delight to read!

I loved Bad Queer so much! This novel in verse explores a tumultuous period in the life of a nonbinary teen named Surya who has Sri Lankan Tamil heritage that lives with their queer parents in London as their friendships shift and they experience their first crush. A sprinkling of lovely illustrations are contained throughout as well.

I really appreciate its deep understanding of queerness as well as its intersections with culture. In general, the depiction of human relationships is also amazing. Familial, romantic, and friend relationships are all treated with care and importance.

I loved how three distinctly different relationships with parents were shown through Surya and their Ammā and Mum.
Despite Surya's parents being queer, it is also important for Surya to find community with other queer kids their age. Characters like Akhil and Sade felt so real and I could visualise them so easily.
I also have to mention that I loved Maha and her love of figure skating <3

The relationship with Blessing was also important in showing queer teens that they deserve a partner who respects their identity, and should not settle for less.

I really liked the discussion of queering tradition as well as how queerness that has previously presented in cultural canon and tradition has been obscured through processes of colonisation (specifically in the Sri Lankan context). Herein embracing queerness doesn't mean abandoning your heritage and community.

Overall an intelligently and sensitively written novel that engaged with a variety of pertinent topics without seeming too preachy or dark. Kamalakanthan is an excellent artist and I'm looking forward to seeing more of their work in the future.

A young adult coming of age. Surya is a non-binary teen navigating friendship, romance and sex.

This is definitely a great book for teens also wondering or struggling with gender, it explains things to a very basic level. However, in a couple sport it drops out of the story to explain things. I didn’t care for getting taken out of the story and feel like the same information could be explained more organically.

There are also lots of illustrations throughout the book but I read the ebook version and I think a physical book would be a better format experience.