SO THAT HAPPENED…BUT MAYBE YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT

Eleven-year-old Natalie Sellek, nicknamed “Nutty” for her fondness for Nutella, faces both an upcoming bat mitzvah and serious upheaval in her suburban Australian life.

Natalie’s family is struggling financially, and she’s been growing apart from her one-time best friend, Avi Gluck. Natalie shares interests (Harry Styles, The Real Housewives) with other girls at her private Jewish school, and she’s unsure how to handle her classmates’ bullying responses to Avi’s gender nonconformity, especially when they come from new friend and queen bee, Shayna. Natalie’s favorite aunt, Sarah, who’s queer, is grappling with depression, and Bubi, her grandmother (a caustic Holocaust survivor), is distressed about moving to an assisted living facility. Debut author Sussman resolves most of Natalie’s challenges rosily, though not without moments of anxiety for the earnest protagonist, including moving house because her parents can’t afford the mortgage, scaling back her bat mitzvah celebrations, and anticipating attending public school. A central relationship conflict is solved too easily, in a way that feels tied to underdeveloped characterization. Bubi stands out for her resistance to the book’s overall optimism: The complex expressions of her trauma and her discontented personality (devoted but never warm) provide an astute portrait of a vanishing demographic. Most characters are Jewish and present white; Avi is biracial (her father is implied white, and her mother, who converted to Judaism, is Chinese Australian).

A heartfelt, if slightly uneven, portrayal of managing challenges in early adolescence.