Little & Lion
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A stunning novel on love, identity, loss, and redemption.
When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she's isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (as well as her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support.
But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself—or worse.
"Little & Lion is beautifully insightful, honest, and compassionate. Brandy's ability to find larger meaning in small moments is nothing short of dazzling." —Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If you like your YA novels packed with intelligence, loaded with insight, and grappling with life’s bigger questions, you’ll love Brandy Colbert’s Little & Lion, the mesmerizing story of a bisexual Jewish black girl’s struggle with identity. “Little” is Suzette, who returns to L.A. from her New England boarding school and rediscovers her connection to home, where her bookworm stepbrother “Lion” is struggling with his mental health. Colbert tackles issues of race, sexuality, and psychological well-being with a complex, multifaceted story that doesn’t shy away from heaviness and rejoices in the power of self-exploration.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After a year at boarding school, 16-year-old Suzette is happy to be home for the summer, but that doesn't mean life is simple. Her stepbrother, Lionel, has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; Suzette has just had her first same-sex relationship (and first encounter with homophobia); and she's attracted to both her longtime friend Emil and her flirtatious coworker Rafaela whom Lionel also likes. Although love and sexuality are important to the story, its core is Suzette's feelings of responsibility for Lionel and uncertainty about how to help him. Colbert (Pointe) powerfully depicts the difficulties that mental illness presents not just for those diagnosed but for the people around them, and her characters reflect the diversity of Los Angeles. Suzette and her mother are black, Lionel and his father are white, and Suzette's friends and love interests are ethnically and sexually varied. While the characters occasionally feel slightly idealized Suzette always tries to do the right thing, her parents are unfailingly accepting, and her friends have an impressive ability to articulate what they feel and why it's a moving and well-realized examination of secrecy, trust, and intimacy. Ages 15 up.
