Tag Archives: Meg Eden Kuyatt

Read This!: PERFECT ENOUGH by Meg Eden Kuyatt

Authors You Should Know, Read This, Reviews

Perfect Enough (Good Different #2)Perfect Enough by Meg Eden Kuyatt
Summary: Selah is a dragon. Or at least, she feels like one. And she finally figured out how to spread her wings and soar. Armed with her sensory tools, her notebooks and poems, and her newfound knowledge about her autism, Selah is heading to writing camp for the summer. She’s excited to work on her writing, perform at the final showcase, and to meet more kids like her. Things aren’t so simple though. As soon as she arrives, she realizes that her bully from home is there too. Ezra is chaotic, attention-seeking, and always teasing her. Selah is determined not to let him ruin her summer. But soon it turns out that it’s not just Ezra causing problems. . . . As kind and enthusiastic as Selah’s new friends are, they don’t fully understand her autism and how overwhelming this new environment is for her. Friend drama, classes, overstimulation, and her relationship with Ezra all start to feel like a lot. But surely Selah can make it through just a few weeks without reaching her breaking point again . . . right?

This delightful sequel to Good Different follows Selah as she enters the brave new world of writing camp, armed with the autism diagnosis she received in the first book, and plenty of tools to help her manage sensory overwhelm. But a new environment and new friends come with lots of new challenges. Selah overcomes her negative previous impressions to become friends with Ezra, a boy from her old school. Even though they declare themselves “brain cousins” in neurodivergence, Selah soon realizes that her autism and Ezra’s ADHD express themselves in very different ways. Add to that the exciting (but sometimes overwhelming) experience of rooming with two new friends who share many of her interests but don’t understand her boundaries. (“Rumors say autistic people aren’t good at social cues,” she says, “but I don’t know where that came from because it seems to me that other people don’t get my obvious cues to leave me alone.”) The author shows Selah’s mounting frustrations with her friends and herself in lyrical verse that often incorporates the forms featured in her writing classes. (Take note, language arts teachers! This book has SO many lesson extension possibilities, many of which are included in writing prompts in the backmatter.) My favorite thing about this story is its refusal to tack on a pat happy ending; the story’s conclusion is satisfying and completely earned, and emphasizes that real progress comes in many different forms. For Selah, that is about learning to answer the question: “How do you know what’s a good or bad uncomfortable? The kind that makes you grow or makes you melt down?”

PERFECT ENOUGH is out now.

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Read This!: THE GIRL IN THE WALLS by Meg Eden Kuyatt

Authors You Should Know, Read This, Recommended Reading

The Girl in the WallsThe Girl in the Walls by Meg Eden Kuyatt
Summary: Neurodivergent and sock-collecting Vee is stuck at her uptight and “perfect” Grandma Jojo’s house for the summer, who she has absolutely nothing in common with. To make matters worse, Vee thought her older cousin Cat would make summer fun again–until an incident happens in the middle of the night. And Cat hasn’t been seen since. 
Then Vee discovers a ghost living in Jojo’s walls. And this girl… this ghost… has been collecting Jojo’s secrets. At first, Vee finds the ghost to be an escape from her grandmother and her memories of the incident with Cat. But as the girl encourages Vee to get back at Jojo by playing pranks, Vee soon uncovers Jojo’s insecurities. And Vee starts to think twice about taking part in the girl’s schemes, until the girl suddenly becomes dangerous, trapping Vee in the walls and threatening to flood the house and everyone in it. Will Vee let grief and anger take control — or is there a way to use even the broken, confusing pieces of her feelings to save her messy family?

Meg Eden Kuyatt’s verse is easy to read, drawing the reader into Vee’s world with its perpetual forward rhythm, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means this book is simple. There’s nothing simple about this spooky story that centers around a ghost who is so much more than she seems. With potent imagery, the author uncovers the layers of fear, anger, and shame experienced by various members of V’s family, and the tangible harm they do when left to fester. Like the author’s previous verse novel, Good Different, The Girl in the Walls explores an autistic protagonist’s family relationships and the effects of generational trauma. But here she masterfully leverages the tools and techniques of speculative fiction to mine the emotions at the heart of Vee’s family history.

THE GIRL IN THE WALLS is out now.

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Read This!: GOOD DIFFERENT by Meg Eden Kuyatt

Read This, Recommended Reading, Resources for Teachers and Librarians, Reviews

Good DifferentGood Different by Meg Eden Kuyatt
Summary: Selah knows her rules for being normal. She always, always sticks to them. This means keeping her feelings locked tightly inside, despite the way they build up inside her as each school day goes on, so that she has to run to the bathroom and hide in the stall until she can calm down. So that she has to tear off her normal-person mask the second she gets home from school, and listen to her favorite pop song on repeat, trying to recharge. Selah feels like a dragon stuck in a world of humans, but she knows how to hide it. Until the day she explodes and hits a fellow student. Selah’s friends pull away from her, her school threatens expulsion, and her comfortable, familiar world starts to crumble. But as Selah starts to figure out more about who she is, she comes to understand that different doesn’t mean damaged. Can she get her school to understand that, too, before it’s too late?

How I adore this book! The author’s gorgeous use of imagery puts us directly into Selah’s point of view. I felt the itchiness of that school uniform and smelled that sour milk big-box store smell. Every detail, from Selah’s dragon metaphors to Pop’s four-colored pen to a through-the-bathroom-stall-wall conversation at FantasyCon, is pitch perfect. This deeply realized and beautifully rendered OwnVoices novel should be on every reading list.

GOOD DIFFERENT is out now.

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