Interesting Debut

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True, True follows seventeen-year-old Gil as he transfers to the private school, Augustin Prep, for his senior year. Hoping for a chance to pursue his passion for robotics, Gil instead faces a racist attack from members of the football team and a suspension as punishment for defending himself. Facing discrimination from students and administrators alike, Gil, using the Art of War as a guide, sets out to gather allies and fight back against the racist school system.

The book did an excellent job addressing the ways racism manifests not only as outright attacks and slurs, but also in microaggressions, in unequal opportunities, in ways that can be enmeshed in other forms of discrimination, and most of all in the systems that condone and support these behaviors.

The character of Gil was very compelling. Despite his resolve to face his situation like a general going to war, he still reads realistically like a kid forced to deal with too much all at once. The way his problems pile up - not just discrimination in school, but his grandmother's Alzheimer's, the separation from his father, and the growing distance between him and his friends in his neighborhood - and his anger, frustration, and feelings of isolation ramp up was painful but real.

One complaint I had, though, was that I was expecting more resolution on certain plot threads and conflicts between characters. Throughout the middle of the book, it is a source of conflict and another stressor in Gil's life that he is struggling to maintain relationships and balance his time between Augustin and his family and friends in his neighborhood while also fighting the racism he's subjected to at Augustin. The way he feels like he's failing his friends and family and is losing his support systems played a big part in how he was feeling and acting during a large part of the story. However, by the end of the book, it seemed like the narrative itself sidelined certain characters and conflicts between them that felt unsatisfying given their earlier importance. It wasn't a major issue, for me, but it left the ending feeling a little off, a little incomplete.