3 stars

Kacen Callender is a vital presence in the wonderful worlds of YA and middle grade, and I enjoy their work so much that it can even be found in my profile pic. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting to find myself underwhelmed with this most recent effort. Unfortunately, that's the case.

The standout feature of this novel - and the one that will have me undoubtedly recommending it to students despite my middling feelings overall - is the representation. Respectively, the titular characters are nonbinary and trans, and Lark is neurodivergent. Both characters' intersectional identities shape their experiences with each other and in the world, and I will never turn down a novel with this kind of expansive representation.

For me, the book moves too slowly. Lark is a p-r-o-c-e-s-s-o-r. Readers spend a lot of time in Lark's mind, and while that provides insight into the thought patterns and perceptions of a neurodivergent character, it also happens so frequently that it feels distracting. Along with the pacing, I also struggled with some aspects of the plot that felt underdeveloped and/or in need of more explanation. I was on board with the concept all along, but I never felt the development, connection, and engagement that I've been used to in Callender's previous works.

To be clear, this is absolutely a worthy read, and I'll be recommending it to students specifically because of the representation. That noted, I'm hoping that future books from this author remind me more of _Felix_ and _King_ than this more recent effort.

As a huge fan of Kacen Callender’s middle grade fiction, I was really looking forward to this book. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good fit for me. I will say that the characters were amazing. It was refreshing to see LGBTQIA++ characters represented with love and acceptance. I will be pleased to purchase this title for my HS library because many of the students will see themselves in this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

I love the LGBT+ representation but this the way the story was written is hard to keep up with. There are a lot of points that were made that makes absolutely no sense it was almost like reading a middle grade book in sense how some points got mentioned over and order just beat the lesson in. Overall, it was a DNF about 25o pages into the book.

Lark & Kasim Start a Revolution is at once an absolutely beautiful book that everyone should get their hands on, and one that I feel entirely unqualified to write a review for because it is not a book written for me. The two lead characters are black and queer (and anxious and depressed and neurodivergent), in a cast of characters that is made up almost entirely of BIPOC and queer and neurodivergent. I'm not part of that community, so for me to offer anything like a critique would be entirely out of place here. On the other hand, it's important that these two things exist at once, and that in itself is the beauty of Lark & Kasim.

Instead, let me tell you why this book feels important, as a high school teacher. First, there is not a singular white character to be seen throughout the book. As a teacher in a rural indigenous high school, this type of representation is going to be huge. Second, the pandemic is an overarching conversation throughout the story without being a major point of anxiety. For students who have had to live through these past few years and adapt to the way that life is now, this normalization of talking about the pandemic from teenager characters was refreshingly safe feeling. Third, the characters are allowed to talk about their anger - when it comes to racism, bullying online and off, family, etc - and it all feels genuine. Fourth, there is a very great discussion of how social media impacts teenagers and mental health in a way that adults cannot always get at in a singular conversation. And, lastly, the normalization of neurodivergence and mental health struggles that so many teenagers deal with nowadays will connect with a lot of students.

Essentially, while this book might not have been written for me, I am so excited to help get it into the hands of the ones it absolutely was written for.

lark and kasim start a revolution by kacen callender: 4/5 stars

i really enjoyed reading this. i read most of it while in lines at disneyland, and it was a satisfying way to spend my day. i’m a big fan of felix ever after, and many of callender’s strengths seen in felix are evident here: a strong voice, realistic teenagers and adults, nuance and complications in relationships/situations/conversations, an exploration of queer Blackness. and while i know there’s a need for coming out books, i loved that this was self-exploratory without being a coming out story.

there were a few things i think could have been a little stronger: lark’s relationships with eli and with his bullies didn’t feel as thorough as the ones with his friends, which i get but it made some of the resolutions feel rushed. i didn’t feel as strong connection with lark as i did with felix, which may just be the voice. there’s a lot of softness in this book, and sometimes lark came off as whiny. but this is also a ya book and teens are whiny, as am i at 34.

would recommend this and will continue to read callender’s work.

I'm not sure I've ever read something that so accurately captured the feelings of being a bunch of queer teens in an arts collective. Some people are going to think this many trans kids in one place is unrealistic, or this many polyam kids, or this many autistic kids and witches and artists and activists and especially especially Black kids, but I've seen this group before. It's not even that there are pockets of society like that- this is just what society is. So I don't find Lark to be unrealistic, or a bad protagonist. I do, however, find them to be a bit of a stressful one. A book about cancel culture and accountability, particularly between young people, is a timely, important, and interesting one, but we end up with a lot of the panic and not a ton of the resolution. The book is interspersed with Lark's tweets, and the replies and conversations people have about them. While Lark does spend parts of the book talking about this, it can feel a bit disconnected; Lark feels anxiety at the idea of being unliked online, but doesn't seem to interact with the specifics of the criticism, doesn't seem overly invested in correcting or evaluating their online presence, and doesn't seem to reflect on the issues (and unfair criticism) that others bring up. The same can sometimes go for the in-person bullying. Lark spends a lot of time worried about if they are a toxic person, and if they could be without even knowing, and the bullies spend a lot of time twisting Lark's actions and words, but Lark doesn't seem to do a lot of reflection beyond the morality of the initial "taking credit for the tweets" plot. The ending of the book rests on a discussion of accountability versus canceling and bullying, but we never get any good answers or discussion on what constitutes a problematic action, a useful reparation. But this critique of the book walks a fine line as well. As a Black, trans, and neurodivergent protagonist, Lark knows that they will be judged more harshly by anyone watching them, and it's difficult to look at them as an annoying or immature character with this lens. With more books about people that fall into those categories, we'll be able to have broader character types- even in this book, Lark almost exclusively dates other trans people, who all have distinct personalities, goals, and dreams- and the value of the dynamics in this book outweigh the character issues. Another carefully crafted work from Callender, though maybe one that could have included its main character a little more in the ethical discussions it wants to raise.

Not sure why, but I wasn't able to finish this book. I typically like to read books pretty rapidly -- in a sitting or two -- but it took me a week to get through half of this book and after that, I decided not to finish it. That being said, I did love the amount of queer characters in this book -- trans and nonbinary characters are so normalized in this book and it's a breath of fresh air to not read trans storylines that feature a high amount of transphobia -- and I definitely recommend it for anyone looking for this.

DNF

The Birdie thing is really throwing me off, and sadly I can’t do the middle grade reading level. Wanted to try for Kacen Callender but the writing style is hard for me too read

Like many of my students, I’m a fan of Kacen Callender. With LARK & KASIM START A REVOLUTION, Callender takes on a lot. There’s bullying, activism, found family, online presence (and pressure!) and polyamory. I’m so glad to see a book, especially one by such a talented author, write teens who are exploring and/or identifying as polyamorous. I hear it mentioned more often, especially in the context of someone saying, “I’m poly.”

One of my favorite parts of the novel is the relationship Callender creates between Kasim and Lark’s mother, the familial ties that further complicate the relationship between Kasim and Lark, forcing them together even when the two had drifted apart.

All of the social media references and pop culture references pull attention from the characters at times, which makes sense for Lark’s goals in particular. However, it does make it harder to stay as connected to the characters compared to Callender’s other novels.

First I want to give a shout-out To netgalley and ABRAM kids for letting me receive an ARC of this book. I was excited to get this book because I have heard a lot of positive things about Felix ever after which is another one of their books.
Firstly, I want to say that for a YA this book hits DEEP. It is real, raw, and honest. I read this book quickly but there were parts of this book that were really difficult to read and pretty upsetting. So I am just putting that out there. You will 100% want to check trigger warning before reading this. I really identified with the main character, Lark. Specifically with them being nerodivergent and narrating this story. I felt like my brain was Larks brain at times, being Neurodivergent myself. Park rambles and goes on tangents, and gets off topic which is totally related to and felt SEEN. I think that might be off-putting to some readers but I really enjoyed it. It is the best Neurodivergent rep I have seen for a narrator of a book. I LOVED how freaking queer this book was. It was a **chef’s kiss** and it was WONDERFUL!!! So much good representation! Also Larks journey to loving themselves was beautiful. This book is again not your typical fluffy YA and was very upsetting to read. There was not enough happy to counter balance the sad for me which left me a bit uneasy. I didn’t feel like the conflicts were full resolved either which also attributed to the uneasiness. I also didn’t feel like romance aspect of the book added to the plot for me and felt no super genuine. Overall this book is really going to resonate with a lot of people. I don’t think it is the book for me, but I do think that there are a lot of young adults and teens that are going to feel represented and seen through reading this book!

Every once in a while I will read a book that leaves me feeling really conflicted, and this is one of those books.

Let me start by saying that I loved the diversity of these characters. As a neurodivergent, non-binary person I really loved seeing so many beautifully written characters that fit into those groups. I also really enjoyed the dynamics of all of their interactions (even Micah and Patch’s interactions with Lark) and think that each character held their own unique personality really well. I also really liked that the story was able to showcase some of the side effects that social media can have. Because while it can be a really positive experience, sometimes it can be really toxic.

That being said, what I’m really conflicted about is Lark’s romantic relationships. None of them felt really organic or authentic, and I really wasn’t sold on Lark having romantic feelings for Sable at all. At most I felt that they were attracted to Sable but just didn’t buy that they were interested in a relationship. I felt that both the relationship with Eli and the attempt at one with Sable were based merely on attraction. Ultimately I’m happy that Lark and Kasim were able to work things out but definitely thought they needed more time to work things out with themselves before committing to a relationship.

Thank you to NetGalley and Abrams for providing me with this arc in exchange for my review.

Lark & Kasim Start A Revolution was good! Lark is a 17 year old non-binary writer. They think that if they hit 50k followers on Twitter, they will get a publishing deal. One night, their friend Kasim accidentally posts a confession of unrequited love onto Lark’s Twitter, and then asks Lark to pretend it’s their own. The tweet changes Lark’s life in unexpected ways.

My expectations were pretty high because of how much I loved Callender’s other books. This one didn’t seem as well paced. Lark is neurodivergent so there were lots of tangents and rambling inner thoughts. The representation in this book was phenomenal and I think many adolescent readers will feel seen in this book.

While I’m not the target audience for this novel and neither are my middle school tweens, it took a lot of effort to get through this book and I’ve read other Callender works and loved them, so it isn’t the author. This book was filled with pop culture references, song lyrics, and Tik Tok dialogue which was confusing and seemed to detract from the story. I also found the bullying aspect to be very harsh.

This book feels super difficult to review, because so much of the book has this meta-commentary about criticism, particularly white criticism of Black writers, and I do not want to fall into the same problems the book is trying in many ways to address. So given that I am a white person who was given this eARC in exchange for a review and thus need to give my thoughts, I am going to try my best to keep this as positive and clear as I can. I loved everything this book had to say, without qualifier, but I sometimes struggled with how it was delivered. I know that part of the story is the fact that it’s narrated by a character who is neurodivergent and so as a result, this shows in the way it’s written, but especially in the first 100 pages, the way that Lark’s internal monologue about huge concepts (time or our universe or like, human rights) leads to scenes being broken up and almost confusing. And while maybe that’s kind of the point, it is jarring for me as an adult reader to have to sometimes go back a few pages to remember where we are in the action of the scene, because it was interrupted by long internal monologue, but I am concerned that for young readers it will be more than jarring and instead be confusing or a hindrance to their understanding or connection to the book. Especially in the first 100 pages, we get so many diversions from the plot in order to hear about these bigger ideas about the world and politics and etc., it’s hard to feel any connection to the story or characters, because it feels like all we have of them are their opinions on these big ideas and not a lot of their actual personalities yet? (And to be clear, these monologues are beautiful and thoughtful and I am not complaining about their content, just how they end up interrupting scenes at times). IDK ultimately that doesn’t mean the story isn’t good or well written, but it does make me feel like it narrows the audience of students I would recommend this book to, because not every kid can or will be able to get through/connect with this style of writing— And that’s the point, of course: This is not a book written for everyone, and that’s okay. I do think teachers/librarians should read this book themselves so that they know what it’s like and can guide students to it that will connect to it, but that’s true of most books! Idk!
The romance, representation, and message are all beautiful in a way that is reliable from Callender’s writing, and is what always makes me excited to read their work. The concerns I have about how accessible this book might be to a wide audience of kids, paired with it being not my personal fav genre anyway (I’m really a fantasy/sci fi person 4 lyfe, contemporary fiction is not my jam), makes this book something like a 3.5/5 for me.

Thanks Netgalley and Amulet Books for this eARC, these opinions are my own. I’m a fan of Kacen Callender’s previous books so I was excited to get this eARC! There was a lot of good things in this book but it wasn’t quite my thing. I loved that this was full of teen queers! Representation is so important and I feel this book really showcased that! I also liked the representation of Lark and neurodivergent people! It’s nice to see more representation for Disabilities as well! There are people who will absolutely love this book, I just struggled a little. I think it could be something I need to read more then once to click. That being said I would definitely recommend it!

7/10, rounded up.
Thank you NetGalley and ABRAMS Kids for the arc!

This is my first Kacen Callender book, so I wasn't really sure what to expect going in. However, from the cover and description, I was expecting Black and nonbinary characters, but I was not expecting there to be ADHD and autism rep, as well as polyamory! As someone who is in a polyam triad, I thought the way they discussed the relationship was very mature - allowing the characters to realize that even though they all like each other it may not be the best time for them to be in a relationship at the moment, then having conversations about it in the future and deciding to be together. I am not Black so I can't speak on that, but I am nonbinary, autistic and ADHD, and polyamorous and thought that the rep of all of those things was really well written! I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested!

Things I liked:
- The representation!!
- The way social media is portrayed felt realistic
- I thought the comments on writings that the different students in their creative writing class did was cool to see
- I loved the character profiles
- A lot of the interactions in general felt realistic to me

Some of my issues with the book:
- I didn't like Birdie
- I thought that there were too many plot points that weren't resolved and was just a bit messy
- I didn't like Jamal not wanting to be Lark's friend because they were lying on the internet and triggered by it - everyone lies sometimes and it's a part of life and the way it was phrased made me uncomfortable
- I thought that the self reflection that Lark did was really good in terms of their personal life, but I wish they also reflected on their ideals, specifically relating to cops and their community. It also seems like Lark and Kasim have differing views on how to handle the discriminations they face that they both feel strongly about and I feel like should be discussed more for them to have a proper relationship
- Everyone being okay with Lark getting bullied in class - Kasim + the teacher not saying anything to stop it

I’m a big believer in the power of representation in literature and so happy to see more trans, nonbinary, and neurodivergent characters on the bookshelves this year. So imagine my delight coming across Lark & Kasim Start a Revolution, an upcoming YA novel that takes representation to the next level. With non-binary, neurodivergent, and trans people of color taking center stage, this novel is RICH in representation.

Aspiring author Lark has a novel inside them and sees Twitter as their means to visibility among publishers and agents. If they can just get to 50K followers, they’re in! So when Kasim, their former best friend, accidentally posts about a secret crush on Lark’s Twitter account instead of his own, Lark makes the choice to save face, protect Kasim, and pretend the post is their own. They even go a step further by naming their crush, which stirs up lots of online activity, their first relationship, and a whole lot of mixed up feelings made all the more confusing by Lark’s neurodivergent processing, Kasim’s constant irritating presence, and a mess of online comments. It’s a bumpy ride through romance in the modern world, as experienced through the eyes of a neurodivergent teen, to an ultimate place of self-love and acceptance. I cringed with every one of their missteps, cried with every heartbreak, and cheered so hard for their happiness. (3.75 🌟 rounded to 4)

Big thanks to NetGalley and Kacen Callender for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review. Lark & Kasim Start A Revolution will be out 27 September 2022.

I'm guessing I'm not Kacen Callender's target audience for this book, but it's still a good book to recommend to middle grade or YA readers. Kacen is always an interesting writer!

I have always enjoyed Callender’s books and this was no exception. I loved how realistically the characters were created and developed throughout the story and the story itself was engaging. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to expand their LGBTQIA+ shelves.

First impressions: my first Kacen Callender book! About a ND nonbinary Black Teen!!

What this book does well:
I think there's important conversations about generational trauma, the issues with using social media making yourself to be less authentic because certain things get likes and certain things don’t. Linking your self esteem to follower count/likes & the way trolls can twist you into someone you're not. The conversations on how Black folks are less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD or Autism and just be labeled violent and difficult so self diagnosis is sometimes necessary was really important but I wished that was further explored.I also really liked the commentary on being a writer and how publishers just miss the mark of understanding. Saying things like, there can’t be so many characters with they/them pronouns because they’ve never met one person who uses those pronouns. Like way to be small minded & I heavily disagreed with what those rejections were tryna say.
I loved sable and birdie, they were the sound of reason to me.
The way the characters were introduced was helpful to keep track of everyone and even though there is a large cast of characters they were all pretty distinct.

On the fence:

I am not sure how I feel about the poly representation. I'm glad this conversation is being had with teens. And when things Do end up working out with Kasim & Lark & Sable it's pretty cute and not vulgar at all. But I kinda wish that was the main focus of the book. Its a cute subplot but i'm not sure enough was said to get a full picture on polyamory. I know how easily teens can latch onto phrases they don't fully understand to seem more grown up as a former teen who did this and a teen librarian.


What i didn’t like:

If you don't like reading pop culture references and song lyrics you will not like this book. I got most of the references because i'm pretty sure me and this author are on the same side of tik tok (28-32 YO Black non binary adult who likes to read and write tok). There was a lot of information which oftentimes felt like scrolling on tik tok and I wish less was said so it could be delved into more. There's a lot of base level knowledge shared that IMO requires more nuance. Especially the conversations about weed. While Callender wasn’t wrong with their points (white folks smoke and get away with it and open cannabis shops while black folks get locked up for nonviolent carrying offenses which isn’t right.) I think I just needed this topic to be given a lot of importance considering our teens are smoking younger and younger. Once again I’m a teen librarian and while i know the teens are engaging in those activities (bc they literally don't even try to hide it ) I don't want them reading a half explored truth to continue using weed as their ONLY coping mechanism, because trust me they are not quick to consider others.
Patch & Micah were the actual worst and why didn't anyone step in to stop them from bullying Lark?! Not the teacher, not Kasim until the end (which eye roll) Eli was the only one who was half trying to see the good in them until that went left because they were thirsty for twitter likes. They knew that Lark didn’t literally mean all people(including racists and transphobes) are good, they were just exploring a thought about humanity, how from those peoples perspectives they are the good guys, they deserved to be questioned for clarity but called out and bullied was ALOT. Why didn’t the teacher listen to that interview that Patch gave Lark and think hmm this tone is aggressive maybe I shouldn’t publish this forced personal confession to the school newsletter…