THINGS WE COULDN'T SAY
JAY COLES
� 2021 Scholastic
$18.99 / higher in Canada
320 pages

Sometimes, mostly when he didn't need it to happen, Giovanni Zucker's birth mother took over his thoughts.

It wasn't as though she was the only thing he had to think about. Gio was an important part of the basketball team at Ben Davis High School; in fact, he was hoping for a college basketball scholarship. He also had classes to study for, two best friends he wanted to hang out with, a little brother who was his reason to get up in the morning, and a father who was always pushing for help at the church he ran. As for his romantic life, there wasn't much to report: Gio dated girls and he'd dated guys, and he was kinda feeling like he liked guys more.

So no, he didn't want to think about his birth mother. The woman who walked out on the family when Gio was a little kid didn't deserve his consideration at all. There was just no time for the first woman who broke his heart.

It was nice to have distractions. Gio's best friends had his back. He knew pretty much everybody in his Indianapolis neighborhood. And the guy who moved across the street, a fellow b-baller named David, was becoming a good friend.

A very good friend.

David was bisexual, too.

But just as their relationship was beginning, the unthinkable happened: Gio's birth mother reached out, emailed him, wanted to meet with him. She said she'd had "reasons" for abandoning him all those years ago, and her truth was not what he'd imagined... He was torn.

There are a lot of pleasant surprises inside Things We Couldn't Say. From the start, author Jay Coles gives his main character a great support system, and that's a uniquely good thing. Gio enjoys the company of people who want the best for him, and it's refreshing that even the villains do heroic things.

Everyone in this book, in fact, has heart, and that softens the drama that Coles adds — which leads to another nice surprise: there's no overload of screeching drama here. Overwrought teen conflict is all but absent; even potential causes of angst that Gio might notice in his urban neighborhood are mentioned but not belabored. This helps keep readers focused on a fine, relatable, and very realistic coming-of-age story line.

This book is aimed at readers aged 12 and up, but beware that there are a few gently explicit, but responsibly written, pages that might not be appropriate for kids in the lower target range. For older kids and adults, though, Things We Couldn't Say offers plenty of reasons to love it.