Honestly Elliott
by Gillian McDunn
Intermediate, Middle School    Bloomsbury    288 pp.    g
3/22    978-1-5476-0625-2    $16.99
e-book ed.  978-1-5476-0626-9    $11.89

With his ADHD, Elliott feels most at home in the kitchen — the one place where he isn’t “extra-disorganized” and forgetful; the place he feels focused, confident, and decisive. But which kitchen? After his parents’ divorce, Elliott and his mother move into “a cozy jumble” of a house with plants everywhere. At his dad and stepmom Kate’s house, there are a lot of rules and everything matches. How do you find your true self when your life seems so divided? When super-smart and popular Maribel Martinez agrees to be Elliott’s partner for a middle-school group project in Ms. Choi’s Advisory period (involving baking gluten-free pies), Elliott knows “this is either the best thing that’s ever happened to me or the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” But, as it turns out, Maribel is looking for her true self, too, which she has realized is not part of the popular group. They make an odd duo; but through the pie project Elliott comes to realize how lucky he is to have a whole big pie of a community that includes Mom, Dad, Kate, new baby Jonah, Maribel, and other friends, too. This is a slice-of-pie, er, -life novel with all the right ingredients for a satisfying read.

From the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.