A review by kell_xavi
Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee

challenging emotional hopeful medium-paced

5.0

This is quite honestly one of the scariest books I’ve read, and one of the bravest. Mila is thirteen, caring about trumpet, her small family, and her close friends, when the boys at school start touching her and talking about her body. Mila’s discomfort is palpable, her stress growing as she begins avoiding places, topics of conversation, clothes she loves in order to make it stop. The confusion, fear, anger, helplessness she feels comes through strong, and I was on her side the whole way through. There’s a sadness to the silence of those around her, the misguided advice, how small it makes her. I wanted someone to stick up for her, but I understood too, that support came in different ways, and there was a realism to every scene. Barbara Dee creates a tense, difficult scenario, but she is gentle through it, gentle with Mila, with her readers, and with the ending. It made sense, I thought. A kind of restorative justice, a kind of reshaping, a kind of repair. I was so proud of Mila, and so glad this book was there to read. 
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