Messy Perfect [Hardcover]

Perfect for fans of Mason Deaver and Becky Albertalli, this tender, raucous novel follows a rule-following, perfectionist teen who starts an underground GSA club at her conservative Catholic high school, from the acclaimed author of Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens.

Cassie Perera is a star student in St. Luke's junior class. But the new school year brings an unwelcome surprise—the return to St. Luke's of Cassie's former friend, Ben, who left a few years ago after a homophobic bullying incident Cassie knows she didn't do enough to prevent.

Still harboring guilt from her inaction, Cassie decides, in her usual, overzealous way, to team up with the neighboring public school to found an underground Gender and Sexuality Alliance—as a complicated strategy for making things up to Ben. Secretly, Cassie is also tempted by the possibility of opening up about her own sexuality for the first time.

As Cassie’s new friends urge her out of her comfort zone, she unlocks a kind of joy and freedom she’s never felt before—even as she struggles to balance these experiences with her typical tightrope of being the perfect daughter, student, and Catholic.

Cassie’s perfectly curated life unravels into turmoil, but can she embrace the mess enough to piece together something new?

“Complex, gorgeous, and true,Messy Perfectlives up to its name. I loved it.” -Elana K. Arnold, award-winning author of Damsel

A very enjoyable novel that also conveys an important message: that no young person should have to choose between different parts of themselves and that, in the words of the main character, you should be able to be religious and queer and still be happy. This moving and heartwarming book is also a love letter to GSAs, by a writer who truly sees and understands the work so many students are doing to make their schools safer and more acceptil³x