It's Girls Like You, Mickey

April 27, 2020
This standalone companion to Kim’s I’m Ok shifts the focus to Ok’s friend Mickey McDonald, now starting the seventh grade and exchanging postcards with Ok, who has moved away. After the family is deserted by her father, self-described “fat poor white girl” Mickey lives with her overworked, irritable mother and helps care for her little brother, Benny, and their menagerie of animals. When new girl Sun Joo, who is Korean, is assigned to be Mickey’s science partner, Mickey helps Sun Joo acclimate, learning Korean phrases and relishing having someone make her a friendship bracelet and nominate her for student government. Mickey sees a chance for them both to upgrade socially when Sun Joo gains the favor of the most popular girl in school, but encouraging her to join the popular group destroys their friendship and tests Mickey’s unshakable confidence. Despite money stress at home, Mickey stays upbeat and inventive, as when she creatively repurposes a pillowcase into a skirt, and models both empathy and compassion while confidently standing up to the school’s mean girl. Along with her desire to help others, Mickey’s unfiltered commentary, for example about her first period and her mother’s smoking habit, make her an inimitable protagonist worth rooting for. Ages 10–up.

May 1, 2020
A secondary character gets to tell her story in this companion title. A lot has changed since I'm Ok (2018). Headstrong Mickey's best friend, Ok, has moved away, and they now communicate infrequently through postcards. She and former pal Asa have also drifted apart, only sharing greetings in the hallway. And as if middle school weren't hard enough, she still takes care of her little brother, Benny, while navigating the volatile moods of her mother, who is exhausted from working nights since her dad up and left. While Mickey scrounges up meals at home, the confidence she exudes at school means that no one there knows of her struggles. Her prospects seem to brighten when she befriends a new student, Sun Joo. Mickey takes it upon herself to help Sun Joo--or Sunny, as Mickey nicknames her--learn English and navigate American culture. Mickey also learns more about Korean culture, bumbling Korean words all along the way in a sweetly equalizing manner. When the popular Sydney threatens to steal Sunny away, Mickey struggles once again to find her footing and confidence. The tightly written narrative bursts with personality and energy, but the sheer amount of issues Mickey faces frequently takes precedence over the girls' friendship. Sunny herself goes through a drastic transformation, but her backstory is largely left to readers' imaginations. Despite a few loose ends, Kim offers a charismatic heroine with plenty of grit. (Fiction. 10-13)

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April 15, 2020
Grades 4-7 Since her best friend, Ok, moved away over the summer, Mickey McDonald is the odd one out at her school and is nervous about starting seventh grade. To make matters worse, her dad is no longer in her life and her mom cannot afford to take her shopping for new school clothes. Friendship and popularity seem, once again, out of her grasp until she gets to know her new lab partner, Sun Joo Kim. Mickey and Sun Joo become good friends, but when Sydney Stevenson, the school's popular mean girl, shows an interest in hanging out with Sun Joo, Mickey begins to feel left out. However, Mickey is not the kind of girl to let things like that get in her way. In her follow-up to I'm Ok (2018), Patti Kim has crafted a story that anyone who is, or has been, in middle school can relate to. Readers will be cheering for Mickey's pluck and perseverance to the last page.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2020

Gr 5 Up-The usually confident Mickey McDonald is on shaky ground as she navigates a new year of school without her best friend, Ok. As if her problems weren't bad enough, her mom is having a hard time making ends meet which means no new back-to-school clothes, and it looks like her dad is out of the picture for good. Mickey's one ray of light is her new friend, Sun Joo Moon, who is new to the school and to the United States. Mickey feels it is her duty to protect Sun Joo and show her the ropes, even if it means pushing and pulling Sun Joo places where she might not want to go. Over the school year, Mickey struggles with everything from her first period to friendship breakups. She has a huge heart and cares a lot for the people around her. Her character growth is admirable, and she eventually learns what is most important. That being said, much of Mickey's behavior as she evolves may be hard for readers to connect with. Throughout the book, she ruminates extensively on random topics in passages that can come across clunky and hard to comprehend. The voice feels inconsistent; at one point, Mickey seems eloquent and well-rounded and in the next breath, she's making another ill-advised decision. It may make for a confusing reading experience. VERDICT Though Mickey is an entertaining character, the inconsistent voice and stream-of-consciousness passages may lose young readers' engagement.-Myiesha Speight, Towson Univ., Baltimore, MD

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