#MMGM: Asking For a Friend, by Ronne Riley

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. This was one of those library books I found by following the "if you liked that" suggestions. It kind of falls into the "issue books" category, but was an interesting read regardless.

 

Title: Asking For a Friend

Author: Ronnie Riley

Publication Info: Scholastic Press, 2024. 268 pages in Kindle

Source: Library

Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads):
Why go through the stress of making friends when you can just pretend? It works for Eden and their social anxiety... until their mom announces she's throwing them a birthday party and all their friends are invited.

Eden's "friends," Duke, Ramona, and Tabitha, are all real kids from school... but Eden's never actually spoken to them before. Now Eden will do whatever it takes to convince them to be their friends--at least until the party is over.

When things start to go better than Eden expects, and the group starts to bond, Eden finds themselves trapped in a lie that gets worse the longer they keep it up. What happens if their now sort-of-real friends discover that Eden hasn't been honest with them from the very beginning?

Author Ronnie Riley creates a world full of queer joy and all the ups and downs of true friendship.

 
My Review:
This was a book that at times was hard to read, not because it was badly written, but because it was well done. Well enough done to make me feel Eden's stress and anxiety, to understand why they end up in a web of lies--even while knowing all along it's a bad idea. Lucky for them that their friends are a bit more mature, or more experienced, than they are, and help Eden out in the end.

I'm pretty sure that even middle-grade readers will be trying to tell Eden not to do it—don't tell another lie, come clean with your mom at least—but they, perhaps even more than this aged reader, will also understand why Eden doesn't. I like that the motive behind Eden's lies, aside from their social anxiety, is to protect their mother. Misguided, of course--mothers want to know what's up with their kid, not to be protected, but wholly understandable, and kind of sweet.

In the end, it's a sweet story of true friendship—of Eden learning what friendship is. Maybe there's a little pushing the bounds of belief that *all* of the people Eden has chosen as their imaginary friends turn out to be queer in one way or another, and to be good friends. Or maybe it's a way of telling us--and Eden--that they have more of an instinct for the right social connections than they think.

My Recommendation:
This is an LGBTQ+ book that is wholly suitable for even younger middle-grade readers, in my opinion. It handles the issues both of social anxiety and of being queer in a manner that should be accessible to kids as young as 8 or 9, and treads very lightly around issues of trans/homophobia, making that aspect of the story less painful and scary. 

 

FTC Disclosure: I checked Asking For a Friend out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange 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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