#MMGM Middle Grade Review: Just Lizzie, by Karen Wilfrid

I'm posting today with the fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop hosted by Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle. Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews. 

Since this is Pride month, I'm focusing my MMGM book reviews on middle-grade books about sexual orientation and gender identity. It kind of started with my review of Ollie In Between last month. 

A note for those wondering if books like this are appropriate for middle-grade kids: 9-13 is exactly the age when kids are entering puberty and starting to think about love, sex, and increasingly, gender identity. That makes it exactly the age when they need books that openly address the things that happen in middle school besides using a locker and changing classrooms six times a day. If 10-year-olds are old enough to be thinking about kissing their girl/boy friends (and they are thinking about it, so... yeah), then they are old enough to read about it. 

Title: Just Lizzie

Author: Karen Wilfrid

Publication info: Clarion Books, 2023. 310 pages.

Source: Library

Publisher's Blurb (via Goodreads):
In this beautifully written contemporary middle grade debut, an eighth grader's study of asexuality in science class leads her to understand her own asexual identity as she embarks on a journey toward self-discovery and self-advocacy. For readers of Alex Gino and Ashley Herring Blake.

There’s the part of me that doesn’t understand kissing or cuteness or attraction, and then there’s the part of me that feels so lonely. How do I make sense of those two parts? Maybe I’ll never make sense of them.

What do you do when there's a question inside you that feels so big, you don't know how to put words to it? How do you even begin to ask it?

Fourteen-year-old Lizzie is experiencing a lot of change: Her family had to move after the incident with their neighbor, leaving behind not only her beloved apple tree but what feels like her childhood along with it. Lizzie's brother is too busy for her in his first semester of college, and her friends are more interested in dating than dolls. It’s hard not to feel left behind, especially as she tries to explain the fact that she still has zero interest in boys, girls, or the baffling behavior known as “flirting.”

But just as Lizzie’s world feels like it's closing in, a class lesson on asexual reproduction in plants piques her curiosity, leading her to look up whether people can be asexual too—and suddenly her world opens up. Lizzie finally finds an identity, a word for all her messy, unnamable feelings that feels like it fits, although she quickly realizes that a label isn’t enough if no one believes it’s real.

Accessible, moving, and compassionate, Just Lizzie effortlessly braids a nuanced individual journey of identity with the bittersweet angst of growing up, growing apart, and learning there are many ways to live and love.

My Review:
This was an interesting story and a good read. At times I felt like there were a couple of stories happening, but of course, isn't that how life works? Not everything that happens to Lizzie her 8th grade year is about learning that she is asexual or learning what that means. Some of it is about overcoming an unrelated trauma and learning to be self-confident, boosted by learning self-defense.

Lizzie isn't sure what's going on with her (a pretty common state as kids enter the teens), but she knows she isn't like the other kids. She's not interested in boys, and she's not interested in girls, either. Thinking about kissing grosses her out. She gets some insight into what that might mean through the plant and animal kingdom--there's a fair amount of asexual reproduction out there. Is it quite the same? Maybe not, but it's a starting point.

One question Lizzie's mother asks raises an interesting point. While most kids by 14 are interested in sex and can make a pretty good job of figuring out which gender(s) they are attracted to, at 14 it can be harder to know if one is asexual or just not yet mature enough in some way to be interested in anyone. Lizzie makes a good case for her own ability to tell the difference. Bottom line, it's good for kids to know what the options are, and essential that the adults in their lives listen with acceptance and love.

Lizzie is lucky to have the internet to help her learn about herself, but she's also lucky to have some good people in her life. To me, probably the most important part of the story is how Lizzie learns to see other people in new ways, and not just herself. I loved the way the author handled the impact of change on Lizzie and her best friend, and how Lizzie comes to understand that these changes don't make her friend into a different person. The same is true of Lizzie's changing relationship with her older brother. 

My Recommendation:
The age of the protagonist and the subject matter make this more suited to kids 11 and up, but there is nothing actually unsuitable for younger kids--it may simply not be of interest to  kids who haven't yet starting to think about sex, romance, and their first kiss--or to wonder why they aren't interested when their peers are. At what age that happens, of course, is wildly variable.

 

FTC Disclosure: I checked Just Lizzie out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."  



Rebecca M. Douglass, 2025
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