Asking For A Friend

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Author(s)
Age Range
8+
Release Date
June 04, 2024
ISBN
978-1339027647
Buy This Book
      
Eden Jones has exactly three friends. And they're all fake.
From a web of lies and anxiety to true friendship and queer joy; this is the wonderful second book from the author of the Indies Introduce and Indie Next List pick, Jude Saves the World.
Why go through the stress of making friends when you can just pretend? It works for Eden and their social anxiety . . . until their mom announces she’s throwing them a birthday party and all their friends are invited.

Eden’s “friends,” Duke, Ramona, and Tabitha, are all real kids from school . . . but Eden’s never actually spoken to them before. Now Eden will do whatever it takes to convince them to be their friends ― at least until the party is over.

When things start to go better than Eden expects and the group starts to bond, Eden finds themself trapped in a lie that gets worse the longer they keep it up. What happens if their now sort-of-real friends discover that Eden hasn’t been honest with them from the very beginning?

Author Ronnie Riley creates a world full of queer joy and all the ups and downs of true friendship. This book is perfect for fans of Guts or Forget Me Not.

Editor review

1 review
A Heartfelt Story of Lies, Laughter, and Queer Joy
Overall rating
 
3.7
Plot
 
3.0
Characters
 
5.0
Writing Style
 
3.0
Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)
 
N/A
Asking for a Friend tells the story of Eden Jones, a nonbinary kid, who has just moved to a new school. Eden has a hard time making friends, so why not just pretend with their mom about their new friends? This plan is going great until their mom decides to throw them a birthday party and lets them know that all of their friends are invited. Now Eden has to convince their “friends”, Duke, Ramona, and Tabitha, to be their friends and come to their birthday party. Unfortunately for Eden, things go great and they get trapped in a lie that keeps getting worse as time goes on. Now Eden has to worry about their friends finding out the truth and learning that they weren’t truthful with them from the start. 

What I liked: This book opens with an author's note to the reader regarding this book and through reading this, I knew that I would love this book. The author lets you know that at no point will you know a certain character’s assigned gender at birth, and that no one is dead named or misgendered throughout the book. 

At first, I was a bit skeptical of an all Queer cast but then I realized the importance of this for the story. When I was younger the only Queer books that I read happened to be about how hard it was to be Queer and the bad things that happen to Queer people. While this book has moments of Transphobia and Homophobia, there are more moments of joy for each of our characters and that is important. I love that we get to see this group of Queer kids enjoying their lives and finding joy in their identities. 

What I wanted more of There were several moments throughout the book in which I was frustrated with how easy everything seemed. I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop when it came to the lies that Eden was telling their friends. It threw me off a bit when this took place near the end of the story and was wrapped up rather quickly. 

Final Verdict:  If you are looking for a book with Queer joy, then I highly recommend picking up Asking for a Friend. Asking for a Friend is a great book for children ages 8 and up to teach about the danger of white lies. This book is great for teaching how lying can impact so many people and the effect that it has on other’s feelings as well as on you when others find out the truth.
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