Published by: Little Brown on August 8th, 2017
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 327
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
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But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse.
Review:
I didn't know if it was possible for me to love another book of Colbert's as much as I had loved Pointe. But then I read Little & Lion and I fell in love with her words all over again. I just love when that happens. I was so nervous about reading this book because I loved Pointe so much. At least now I can put those worries to rest.
Little & Lion is going to be one of those "quiet YAs" that I love so much. It had family, mental health stuff & even a smattering of romance. It was basically a perfect read for me. What I wasn't expecting was Lion's bipolar stuff to hit me so hard. My brother is currently being evaluated for bipolar disorder and I saw a lot of him in Lionel. That stuff hit really close to home and I had a knot in my stomach at certain points in this book because of that.
I loved Suzette's voice. She was just so relatable, especially when it came to her questioning her sexuality. I remembered being in my early 20s and still questioning where I was. I struggled with giving myself a label. Figuring yourself out is something you do in your teens & 20s and Colbert did a great job at showing us how Suzette was figuring herself out. She had DeeDee too, who I liked for the most part. She made sure Suzette knew that she didn't have to label herself and that she could like whoever she liked.
"I don't think I'm selfish for liking both guys and girls." Suzette
I thought this was very important because that is one of the insults hurled at people who identify as bisexual, like myself. We are often called selfish as well as other crappy names and I thought it was good that Suzette didn't feel like she was selfish.
Not only was she figuring out her sexuality, but she needed to figure out how to relate to Lion again. She had seen him at Christmas break when she came back from boarding school, but this was going to be for the entire summer, the longest stretch of time since his diagnosis.
I just loved Nadine & Saul. They loved each other & the kids unlike anything I see regularly in YA books. Even more unique is the fact that Nadine & Saul never married and Suzette was Nadine's child & Lionel was Saul's. There was no such thing as "step" anything in the family and ugh, I just loved that. Nadine & Saul were present in the teens' lives and they were a constant for both Lionel & Suzette.
I actually liked Emil & Rafela and I would have been totally okay with Suzette being with either of them and that is a surprise because usually when there's some kind of triangle thing, I have a preference. Not this time.
Final thoughts: Read this book.
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