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A review by ihateprozac
Little & Lion by Brandy Colbert
5.0
Little & Lion tells the story of the titular Little and Lion, two step-siblings who are reunited over summer break after a somewhat tumultuous year. Little was shipped off to boarding school while her brother, Lion, was given space and support by his family to adjust to his new bipolar disorder diagnosis.
Little comes back to town and is reunited with her brother, but things don’t run smoothly. Little is exploring her sexuality while Lion is (somewhat detrimentally) exploring his mental illness - and these two things converge in a dangerous way.
This holds the award for the most diverse book I’ve read so far this year! There is a huge amount of representation:
- Jewish main character
- QPOC main character
- Biracial/POC love interest
- Non-nuclear/non-nuclear family
- Bisexuality and pansexuality
- Queer and lesbian representation
- Mental illness
- And more!
There is so much wonderful explicit on-page representation, with refreshingly effortless dialogue about bisexuality and pansexuality, and frank callouts of racist language and fetishizing of black hair. It’s books like this that highlight why own-voices writing is so vital, that the writing of diverse characters is so much better when written by diverse authors who share those lived experiences. It’s SO DAMN GOOD.
I can’t personally speak about the accuracy of the bipolar representation, but I was really pleased with how Colbert blatantly called out the stigma against mental illness. She highlighted that physical (or at least, visible physical) disabilities are taken at face value, whereas people with mental illnesses are effectively required to show receipts before being taken seriously. I relate to this on a molecular level and it was SO NICE to see that spelled out on paper!
Overall: This was just such a cool complex contemporary family drama that was chock-full of diverse representation. It’s not fluffy nor dark, it just is. It was an interesting exploration into the life of a QPOC teen and her neurodivergent stepbrother, and I really enjoyed following their development over the summer.
Little comes back to town and is reunited with her brother, but things don’t run smoothly. Little is exploring her sexuality while Lion is (somewhat detrimentally) exploring his mental illness - and these two things converge in a dangerous way.
This holds the award for the most diverse book I’ve read so far this year! There is a huge amount of representation:
- Jewish main character
- QPOC main character
- Biracial/POC love interest
- Non-nuclear/non-nuclear family
- Bisexuality and pansexuality
- Queer and lesbian representation
- Mental illness
- And more!
There is so much wonderful explicit on-page representation, with refreshingly effortless dialogue about bisexuality and pansexuality, and frank callouts of racist language and fetishizing of black hair. It’s books like this that highlight why own-voices writing is so vital, that the writing of diverse characters is so much better when written by diverse authors who share those lived experiences. It’s SO DAMN GOOD.
I can’t personally speak about the accuracy of the bipolar representation, but I was really pleased with how Colbert blatantly called out the stigma against mental illness. She highlighted that physical (or at least, visible physical) disabilities are taken at face value, whereas people with mental illnesses are effectively required to show receipts before being taken seriously. I relate to this on a molecular level and it was SO NICE to see that spelled out on paper!
Overall: This was just such a cool complex contemporary family drama that was chock-full of diverse representation. It’s not fluffy nor dark, it just is. It was an interesting exploration into the life of a QPOC teen and her neurodivergent stepbrother, and I really enjoyed following their development over the summer.