The Order of Things
By: Kaija Langley
Genre: Middle Grade, Novel-In-Verse
Number of Pages: 288
Published: June 6, 2023
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Dates Read: June 13, 2023 - June 14, 2023
Format: ARC / eBook

11-year-old April has been best friends with Zee since they were born only a month apart. They live across the hallway from each other in their apartment building and together, along with April’s mom, and Papa Zee – the four are a family. This school year though, things are changing. Zee has gotten into the new charter school specializing in music for his violin and April is staying behind at their old school.

But, when tragedy strikes and Zee passes away, April is forced to relearn what it means to continue after losing everything she once knew.

I went into this quite blindly. I’m a sucker for novel-in-verse books, especially middle grade because they seem all the more powerful to me for some reason. I saw this one on NetGalley and immediately requested to read it without much else. That being said, after reading it, I fully read the description and I do think it needs to be changed up – it gives away 95% of the book. When I recommend this, I’m going to try and suggest they not read the description to not give anything away.

Besides the description being too much, I’m still going to be recommending this book to many others. It was beautiful and full of representation. This story talks about ways people deal with the pain of losing someone and what it means to speak up at the right time. This is all done in a way that, though a bit simplified for middle grade, it will still require some tissues.

*Thank you Nancy Paulsen Books and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review