Review Detail

Asking for a Friend tells the story of Eden Jones, a nonbinary kid, who has just moved to a new school. Eden has a hard time making friends, so why not just pretend with their mom about their new friends? This plan is going great until their mom decides to throw them a birthday party and lets them know that all of their friends are invited. Now Eden has to convince their “friends”, Duke, Ramona, and Tabitha, to be their friends and come to their birthday party. Unfortunately for Eden, things go great and they get trapped in a lie that keeps getting worse as time goes on. Now Eden has to worry about their friends finding out the truth and learning that they weren’t truthful with them from the start. 

What I liked: This book opens with an author's note to the reader regarding this book and through reading this, I knew that I would love this book. The author lets you know that at no point will you know a certain character’s assigned gender at birth, and that no one is dead named or misgendered throughout the book. 

At first, I was a bit skeptical of an all Queer cast but then I realized the importance of this for the story. When I was younger the only Queer books that I read happened to be about how hard it was to be Queer and the bad things that happen to Queer people. While this book has moments of Transphobia and Homophobia, there are more moments of joy for each of our characters and that is important. I love that we get to see this group of Queer kids enjoying their lives and finding joy in their identities. 

What I wanted more of There were several moments throughout the book in which I was frustrated with how easy everything seemed. I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop when it came to the lies that Eden was telling their friends. It threw me off a bit when this took place near the end of the story and was wrapped up rather quickly. 

Final Verdict:  If you are looking for a book with Queer joy, then I highly recommend picking up Asking for a Friend. Asking for a Friend is a great book for children ages 8 and up to teach about the danger of white lies. This book is great for teaching how lying can impact so many people and the effect that it has on other’s feelings as well as on you when others find out the truth.