A solid story of a middle school girl coming of age without her best friend. The flow of the narrative can be a bit confusing sometimes, especially after the final reveal, but it's nothing that a second reading couldn't fix. Jackson does a great job building the setting and introducting us to the cast of characters making them feel fleshed out and whole; I would love to eat some of Claudia's mom's cooking. My only complaint, which is a huge spoiler,

is how quickly the narrative glossed over poor August even though he went missing first.

I found this on a list of commonly banned books so I thought I'd take a moment to address appropriateness for school-age readers: it's a challenging read with dark themes, several sexual references, and a little underage partying shenanigans; it's a fine read for a mature high schooler, and matches in content to other books I read safely at that age.