Tanya Boteju's Messy Perfect is a kindhearted and affecting YA novel about a closeted teenager creating an underground club for queer students at her conservative high school.
"Between Catholic church and Catholic school and Catholic immigrant parents," Cassie Perera "learned a very specific set of rules and expectations for how to carry" herself. These rules informed her that her fourth-grade best friend, Ben, "who danced ballet and had a lisp" was "odd." Though Ben and Cassie built a friendship, when Chinese American Ben and Sri Lankan American Cassie were bullied after an incident by racist and homophobic classmates in sixth grade, Cassie betrayed Ben. Afterward, Ben moved to Toronto to study ballet and Cassie dedicated herself to being the perfect daughter, student, and Catholic. Now a junior at St. Luke's Catholic high school, Cassie is surprised to learn that Ben is back. After meeting members of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) from Pinetree, the public school across the street from St. Luke's, Cassie founds Crosswalk, an underground safe space for queer kids at her conservative school. She tells herself she started Crosswalk to absolve herself of some of her guilt around Ben but begins to wonder if the club was more for her than it was for him.
Messy Perfect is an inspiring and beautifully written coming-of-age novel. Boteju (Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens) carefully tackles topics of sexuality, religion, and morality through Cassie's struggle to define her sexual identity alongside her religious identity. Boteju uses an LGBTQ+ lens to encourage readers of all identities to develop and be true to their own moral compasses. --Natasha Harris, freelance writer