Review copy: Digital ARC via publisher

It’s winter and everything is cold at the beginning of this gem of a story, but warmth slowly seeps in through people and their relationships even though winter remains. As is the case with many books, much is jumbled at first–particularly with three different perspectives. I was sometimes needing to reread bits and sort things out, but that didn’t last very long. Over time, the voices and personalities became more distinct and their backstories were filled in enough to answer a lot of questions.

The teens at Pink Mountain Pizza work for money, but they also go there to have another space to exist. Young people spend most of their time between home and school, but in this third place, Berlin, Cam, and Jessie have the opportunity to learn more about their abilities and challenges and have a space to be something other than simply a child or a student. They also have time to get to know each other.

While they are learning, they are also sharing themselves and finding ways to offer support to one another. They are each very definitely facing challenges, but have all really been trying to cope on their own without relying on others. The difficulties include depression, grief, economic issues, racism, a learning disability, anxiety, childhood health trauma, and probably some others I am forgetting right now. Berlin, Cam, and Jessie have much to learn readers will see them stumbling, but also growing.

An image that is carried throughout is that of a pipe by Magritte that Berlin had seen in French class previously. Until I looked it up today, I knew that image by the name This is Not a Pipe, but didn’t know it’s other name, The Treachery of Images. The main characters are trying to project a particular image for others to see and have been hiding a lot, but are also trying to navigate the people and spaces around them to see the realities and not just what they think is there.

Berlin and Cam have connections from childhood and through the shared experience of being Native in Canada. Even when they are at odds, mostly due to misunderstanding what they see and experience, those things bind them together.

Recommendation: Get it soon. As the author explains in a helpful note at the beginning (which you can find in this sample), there are hard topics in this story including anti-blackness along with missing and murdered Indigenous women. But, there are also wonderful things like friendships and love in the face of such things and somehow there is a warmth within the pages that is comforting.

Berlin - a thick queen, works very hard in school, is in the middle of a fight with her best friend (one-sided, really, her best friend is ghosting her and she does not know WHY at all), is very responsible and attached to her job at Pink Mountain Pizza
Cameron - high school dropout, supports his family while his parents are out at work/in school, also works very hard but is a little sloppy and himbo-ish about it, but it suits him especially once you figure out he has dyslexia
Jessie - is in recovery from childhood cancer, smokes as a "fuck it" to it all, has a shitty rich dad and has her job also kind of as a "fuck you" to him

The three of them are all working the night Berlin has a spotting of Kiki - who is Cameron's cousin, who has been missing for months, whose mother was murdered

This book is a little slice of life; it does follow the kids as they find out more about the Kiki sighting, but also just follows them through work and family stuff and through finding out some news they don't love about their workplace

Berlin and Cameron are Native, and Jessie is white. I really am not sure why Jessie has a POV in this story. Maybe as the like breaking the cycle vibe of her rich capitalistic dad? Or as a third party viewer into Berlin and Cameron's relationship maybe? Berlin and Cameron have been in each other's lives forever as their moms are best friends but they have disliked each other for quite some time and it's genuinely mostly one-sided via Berlin. Cameron just isn't the type to care very much lol

There's some spiritual nature vibes in this one which is neat, there's also obviously important convos about missing and murdered Indigenous women, small business stuff, Cameron's family situation (I wanna call it uncommon but it's really more common than you'd think)

I do think I preferred the one-person POV of the first book from this author, but I enjoyed the storylines in this one and the blend of important topics and a little supsense. It was definitely worth the read and I'll definitely keep an eye out for what's next from the author!

2.5 stars. Look I really wanted to like this book it was recommended in a booktok video by an indie bookstore the plot sound amazing and I wanted to diversify my bookshelf.

But nope, the author is clearly not a teenager and the way she portrays them is just cringe, the way they talked and express themselves. They were both too adult sounding in some stuff and clueless in others. Like no one does that

And then the plot was week it was a lot of points trying to be made im all for anti blackness, anti capitalism, colonialism and most importantly intersectionality but it just felt messy and over the top in not a good way.

This does not mean that I will invalidate this story. Having indigenous authors and talking about the missing people is important, just this book didn’t do it for me and it took me 20 days to read a 300 page YA book I would dread picking it up, the only reason I didn’t DNF was because I wanted to know what happened to Kiki and it was the most anticlimactic thing in the entire world, like they figure it out in a night, call someone to confirm (that by the way how are we not going to held her accountable for the dumbest shit ever, this character made me so angry like wtf) and then show up have like a 5 page conversation and that’s it?? Back to being a happy family and lets not talk about how traumatized she must be??

Ok apparently I had more feelings that I expected so I will stop. Anyway not for me I will go look for something else.

Perfection.one of the best I’ve read this year.