4/5: ‘The Inexplicable Logic of My Life’ is a Young Adult, LGBT+ Contemporary by Benjamin Alire Sáenz; Salvador Silva, begins senior year with an unfamiliar fire burning within him, as the child firmly enfolded in the love of his gay adoptive father Vincente and their extended family, suddenly, every cut and insult sends Sal into a violent rage. He begins to question these minor impulses, whilst struggling with self-identity and the tragedies of loss. Sáenz is a poet as well as a novelist, his language is sharply musical. Staccato sentences form a barrier around the protagonist, at the same time as his earnest first-person narration invites the reader inside. This push and pull mirror the dance that Sal is doing with his loved ones as he struggles to reveal what's truly in his heart. It is difficult to talk too much about the plot of this book, as it follows a year-in-the-life format, using emotional battles and breakthroughs as its climactic peaks. Its true strength lies in the complex and sympathetic characters that populate Sal's world, and the way they work together to build an unconventional family. On the subject of family, it must be said that there are an awful lot of dead mums in this book. By the end, so many mothers have died that it's a little hard to keep track of whose ashes are being scattered at any given time. It feels a little excessive, to the point where at least one death was rendered almost absurd where it should have been tragic. Father figures, with the exception of Sal's adoptive dad, are also conspicuously absent, gone before they could contribute much more than DNA. It's an interesting choice in a genre that is famous for killing off and side-lining parents in creative ways so that teens can get into trouble without having a grown-up around to sort them out – but that clearly isn't the choice here. Sal's adoptive dad is a constant presence, and there are a variety of aunts and uncles orbiting around the family, ready to do the work. Here, the death and absence of parents is a litany of loss written across our characters' lives. Sáenz tackles issues of race, queerness, feminism, and poverty with a deft and gentle hand, wrapping up the things that could have made this into an "issue" book into a journey of self-discovery and acceptance. These characters feel like fully realized people, and Sáenz gives us a window into a brutal and beautiful year in their lives – Wonderful!