A review by goosemixtapes
Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas

3.0

in general, i just wanted more from this book - more development of the characters, more development of gus and kalyn's relationship (though their friendship WAS the strongest aspect of this book imo), more of a solid stance on prison abolition (not that every YA book can be expected to be prison abolitionist, but this one felt like it got halfway and never settled on "maybe prisons aren't great"), more of the main characters' parents' backstory. the backstory, in particular, made the ending reveals fall a little flat for me. the book isn't really a murder mystery, though there is a murder and the details are unknown - it's not a thriller, and so i can accept that maybe we aren't supposed to be able to guess the end, because gus and kalyn are in the dark, too. but everything seemed to wrap up very, very quickly, to the point where i almost wondered if the backstory should have been told in a dual timeline rather than summarized in one chapter (though i'm a slut for dual timelines, so maybe that's just me). also i kind of just couldn't stand phil; maybe that was the point, but i wasn't sure why he was necessary at all.

again, though, i really loved the friendship between gus and kalyn (and the rep!!! lesbian MC!! bi MC with cerebral palsy!! a healthy and completely nonromantic friendship between a guy & girl, the sort i would have killed for in middle school!!!), and all in all this was a fun read, even if it ended up a little unsatisfying.