All the Things We Don't Talk About

March 15, 2022
A mother's sudden return forces the lives of a father and child into turmoil. Morgan Flowers, who's nonbinary, is used to being their neurodivergent father Julian's emotional caretaker. What Morgan isn't used to is putting their own wants and needs first. Enter Sadie Gardner, a fellow scholarship student at Morgan's elite private school, who, much to Morgan's shock, finds Morgan desirable. Things seem to be going well for Morgan until their mother, Zoe, who struggles with addiction and had taken off years before, comes tearing back into their life like a tornado, showing up unexpectedly at their front door. Thus the careful equilibrium Morgan has worked so hard to maintain comes crashing down: "You need to leave right now, Dad repeated once Morgan rushed him inside. You need to leave right now, Dad repeated while Morgan unzipped his coat and untied his shoes and helped him upstairs and gathered the weighted blanket and laid him down on the bed." On top of Zoe's sudden return, Morgan also finds themselves dealing with a blossoming friendship with an internet stranger who thinks they are someone else, the lingering loss of Morgan's grandmother, whose cardigan still sits on the back of a chair in the house, and a father whose desperate internal desire to love and protect Morgan is followed up with little action. While Feltman's narrative is, at times, clouded by too much attention given to the lives of secondary and tertiary characters, the complex relationship between Morgan and Julian places this novel solidly in the category of worthwhile reads. A multidimensional family drama.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 15, 2022
Feltman's (Willa & Hesper, 2019) second novel is a 2022-appropriate take on the classic family saga. Everyone's looking for someone to love, including Morgan, an aspiring filmmaker and nonbinary teenager. When they begin dating Sadie, things seem too good to be true. Morgan's fear comes to fruition when their mom, Zoe, an alcoholic, comes back into their life and brings a tornado of chaos along with her. In the process, Zoe's partner Brigid gets pulled into the fray, and Morgan's dad, Julian, who is neurodivergent, struggles to find common ground with his child. Characters' experiences are central to who they are: Julian's as an autistic person, Zoe's history with addiction, Brigid's experience dating a younger person, and Morgan's journey through gender identity. Feltman's writing succeeds in depicting each of these characters with nuance and grace, though the book can sometimes fall flat at the intersection of their important experiences. This is far from a deterrent, though, as readers are sure to find characters to root for and identify with.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 28, 2022
Feltman (Willa & Hesper) crafts a nuanced portrait of a nonbinary teen’s coming-of-age amid intense family dynamics. Growing up just north of New York City, 17-year-old Morgan is trying to navigate gender identity and their first romance without much of a road map. Morgan’s father, Julian, is neurodivergent, and their mother, Zoe, has been largely absent from their life after fleeing to Europe on their first birthday. Then, following a breakup with her longtime partner, Brigid, Zoe spectacularly crashes back onto the scene, trailing chaos in her wake and promising glamour and adventure, but only succeeding in undermining Morgan’s fragile sense of trust. Julian and Morgan’s relationship, meanwhile, is portrayed thoughtfully and, at times, poignantly, such as their work together on a 5,000-piece puzzle and their shared PB&Js. Morgan is authentically awkward in their exploration of gender expression, such as a scene in an airport (“They stood in front of the two bathroom choices and, defeated, went into the choice that meant they were invisible”). Not all of this works; a thread involving social media doxing nearly tips into unbelievability, and Zoe and Brigid’s outsize but murky wealth too frequently advances the plot. In the end, though, Feltman brings empathy and moments of grace to her characters. This is worth a look. Agent: Stephanie Delman,Trellis Literary Management.