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Review: All the Blues in the Sky

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All the Blues in the Sky
By Renée Watson
New York, NY : Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2025. Fiction. 182 pages.

In this excellent novel-in-verse, thirteen-year-old Sage struggles with grief and feelings of culpability after her best friend is killed in a hit-and-run. Throughout the book, Sage grapples with her feelings in realistic and devastating ways. She compares her loss to those of others in her afterschool grief group, reasoning that it was worse for her since it was unexpected. She refuses to walk by the place Angel was killed. She withdraws from new friendships, seeing it as a betrayal to her friendship with Angel. As she comes to terms with everything that has happened, she struggles with how to move on, and whether or not it's fair for her to get to move on.

Renée Watson is known for her powerful contemporary realistic fiction, and this book is up to her exceptional standard. For those dealing with grief, or wanting to better understand a friend who is, this book is a realistically-drawn look at the grieving process.  

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