This book so clearly demonstrates why Queer feels so much more comfortable than any other label I've ever tried. For a lot of us sexuality is fluid, ever shifting like the tides. People aren't static. We are dynamic, growing and changing. That is a central theme of the story. Change.

Julie Murphy is one of my favorite authors. She won my heart with Dumplin, but Ramona Blue has raised my admiration and affection to new heights. It's so rare to see reflections of my adolescence in any media, much less Fiction aimed at young adults. This book felt like a time capsule, left for me by my younger self. A love letter to remind me how scared and confused I was as a teen. To remind me of how it's okay to not know the answer even in my 40s, because this has been a long journey and I'm still on it.

The writing is similar to Dumplin, in that it feels so natural. Ramona's voice is pitch perfect (as is the performance of Therese Plummer, the audiobook narrator). The depiction of her life in a small coastal Mississippi town, living in a trailer and scrapping by on the meager wages from various jobs feels so real. (Reminding me a lot of the authenticity I loved in Carrie Mesrobian's Perfectly Good White Boy.) As well as Ramona's diverse group of friends, two of whom are also gay and several who are people of color, reflected my experience of small town life as a queer kid of color. Those tight knit groups that help you feel like less of an outsider.

I fear I'm too close to this book to give a useful review. I love the characters, in particular Ramona, Freddie, and Ruth. Oh Ruth has a moment in this that cut me to the bone. I've had that conversation with a friend. Oh! And Freddie is black, he and Ramona have an explicit conversation about race. I've had to have those conversations with white friends when I was freaked out by cops or when they roped me into illegal shit.

There's so much involvement of adults, and various families (all coming in different shapes). It all flows so naturally, the way our lives do when we living in real communities. The adults are so realistically human, flawed but trying as best they can. Just like the kids.

Ugh this book is so good it makes my chest hurt. It felt like it was written just for me. What else can I say? I love it.