Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

Nothing major here from a concerning standpoint. The biggest thing some parents will want to know is that one of the boy’s backstories involves Covid and there are a few looks and references back to it. He lost his mom, he believes, from complications from catching the virus. This also brings up the heaviest scene of an otherwise light book. In flashbacks this young man remembers seeing his mother in the hospital with machines and tubes and doctors. She eventually passes. Since then, he has pulled away and checked out from the other kids he used to interact with. To keep the story moving there are times when one boy skips his last class and rides across town. The most dangerous part of the book has the boys setting themselves up to get struck by lightning, which they do and survive. There are times when the two main characters are not the kindest to each other. This resolves pretty nicely, but seemed unnecessary and unexpected when reading. One character makes the comment that “dead is no joke. It’s permanent and final”, which as Christians we know is completely false. This is likely a comment you will likely want to address with your young reader. In a similar way, the term “basically good” is good to describe people, which we know as a modern way to look at man. There is also a point where one boy says that he keeps getting locked out of TikTok (due to his memory). There are also uses of shut up, santa, the Easter bunny, idiot, jerk, moron.