Out of the Blue: A heartwarming picture book about celebrating difference

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In a world where only one colour is allowed, will he be brave enough to tell his dad? And will they be able to defy the rules and create a world where EVERY colour is welcome?

Good account of Liz Truss' early career in particular, and of time in cabinet. Account of her period as PM seemed very brief and felt like more depth needed. One assumes this may appear in later analyses. Roses aren't any less beautiful because they don't live long. No one looks at them and thinks, man, what a tragedy they'll only be around for a little while. You just appreciate them while they're there. Or if you don't, you're missing the point.” The strength of this book (as it was for June's other book), for me, was the representation. There is a lot to love about the characters June creates and the diversity they portray. Out of the Blue, for instance, has:

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For me, though I loved the idea of a queer mermaid, and I was excited by the rep at large, this really wasn't the book for me. When I first heard about Out of the Blue, all I was hearing about was ‘fallen angels’ and ‘f/f’ romance so it was easy to jump to the conclusion that there were sapphic angels! There isn’t, but the relationship between Allie (who is disabled and bisexual), and Jaya (who is Sri Lankan and a lesbian) was lovely and heartwarming. And it is a huge part of the book so no need to worry about that. This is why hope is dangerous: it it’s taken away, you’re left with even less than you had before.”At the risk of sounding like the kind of completely negative person I try so hard not to be, Out of the Blue is literally the first new book I’ve read in 2018 that I’ve liked. Seriously. I have no idea what this says about me, but if you take anything away from that statement, it should be that this book is amazing.

Which leads me to- the whiplash. The constant anger and drama coming out of left field was exhausting and usually pretty ridiculous. I couldn't take any of it seriously and it just made me feel like the characters were even less mature and fleshed out. ThisThe romance is understated and sweet. Allie, the love interest, is tough and smart and kind and stubborn and I loved her so much. She is disabled and her disability is discussed by the characters at length. While I am not disabled in the same way and thus feel unequipped to comment on whether Allie's relationship to her disability is positively or negatively represented, I do suffer from chronic illness and I totally get the unfairness of it and I appreciated seeing a character like Allie in a book like this. I want to shake the book until answers fall out. But nothing is going to fall out. I doubt there is an explanation. I want to start by saying that I wasn't a far of this author's YA debut, Jay's Gay Agenda. I wasn't expecting much coming into this novel, which may be why I was pleasantly surprised: it really seems as though the author took some of the criticisms for Jay's Gay Agenda in stride and used them to improve. Gone are the constant out of touch pop culture references (thank GOD) and in is a more structured storyline and better rounded characters.