Review | gods with a little g

gods with a little g by Tupelo Hassman

“If you were flying in a plane over Rosary, California, the first thing you’d see is me, a skinny white girl with messy hair and a big backpack, waving you on. ‘Keep going,’ I’d say.” *

Helen is tired of living in Rosary, a town named by Catholics but now run by Thumpers (Bible-thumping evangelicals) who have alienated the surrounding towns.

“Rosary is like that bully in the schoolyard who looks around when the dust settles and says, ‘Where did everybody go?'” *

Rosary doesn’t want to be isolated from their neighboring city Sky but they don’t condone their lifestyle choices and they certainly don’t want them to influence the teens of Rosary.

Little do the Thumpers know Helen and her group of misfit friends, the self-proclaimed Dickheads, spend their afternoons at Fast Eddie’s Tire Yard drinking beer and their nights dialing in to a Sky radio station that discusses topics that are off-limits in their hometown.

gods with a little g follows Helen through her junior year: navigating life with her best friends Win and Rain, coming to terms with her dad’s first relationship since her mom died, and harboring a secret crush on bad boy Bird …who may become her stepbrother (awkwaaaard).

Full of lovable quirky characters in a modern dystopia, gods with a little g is a unique and gritty coming-of-age story that doesn’t shy away from complicated and relevant topics like gender identity and abortion.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.  gods with a little g is scheduled for release on August 13, 2019.

*Quotes included are from a digital advanced reader’s copy and are subject to change upon final publication.