It’s ironic that a book about bullying can be so full of cruel, negative stereotypes that it verges on bullying itself.

Lucky Linderman, the teenage protagonist of A.S. King’s young adult novel Everybody Sees the Ants, has been routinely bullied by an asshole named Nader McMillan since he was seven years old. Nader’s antics grow ever more cruel until, one day at the pool, he uses Lucky’s face to try to erase the cement.

With a giant wound in the shape of Ohio on his cheek, Lucky’s mom packs them up and heads to Arizona to the safe confines of her brother and sister-in-law. They leave behind Lucky’s father a chef who can only cope with his falling apart family by disappearing into work.

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