At the start of Kat and Meg Conquer the World, it’s near the start of the school year and Kat, who’s in tenth grade, has recently moved from Ottawa, where she grew up, to Edmonton, where she and her parents are now living with her grandfather, who’s frailer than he used to be after a fall and subsequent hip surgery. Kat doesn’t really know anyone at her new school yet, and she’s an introvert who has anxiety/panic attacks: she’s happier spending her lunch break in the library playing Legends of the Stone, the MMORPG she loves, than eating in the cafeteria with her classmates. Meg, meanwhile, has always lived in Edmonton, and is an extrovert who’s happy giving high-fives in the hallway to kids she doesn’t even know. Meg has ADHD, and worries that it’s making her lose friendships and relationships: I love this, from early in the book, in a passage where Meg is thinking about a newish friend who’s maybe already getting tired of her (or, ahem, is maybe just not the best fit): “She’s always asking me if I’ve remembered to take my meds, like she thinks they’re some magic pill that’ll cure me of me. Ugh, blah, and sigh” (7). Meg doesn’t play Legends of the Stone (LotS for short), but is a big fan of a YouTuber called LumberLegs who posts videos of himself playing it. Kat is a LumberLegs fan too, so when she and Meg end up as partners for a multi-month science project, it doesn’t take long for the two of them to discover their shared fandom, which is a jumping-off point for a close friendship.
I really like how this book centers on characters who are dealing with a lot of issues (mental health stuff, family stuff, school stuff, friendship stuff, relationship stuff) without it being an “issues book” or heavy-handed. I like that Kat and Meg’s friendship is at the center of the story, and I love so many things about that friendship. I like how their very different personalities sometimes cause tension, but how they both keep trying to work things out, and I like how each of them tries to keep the other’s experiences and preferences in mind, even when those preferences feel completely foreign. I like how Kat (who’s white) pays attention when Meg (who’s black, in a school with few other black kids) shows or tells her things about race/racial privilege that Kat has maybe never really considered before, and also how Kat tries to be a good ally and think about issues of race/doesn’t expect Meg to teach her everything. I like how Kat and Meg are always trying to be there for each other, even when they’re not sure how best to do that.
And while Kat and Meg’s friendship is the central great thing about the book, I like so many other relationships in it, too: the way Meg interacts with her half-siblings, the way Kat worries about not knowing how to be close to her grandfather, Meg’s feelings about her estranged ex-stepfather, an online friendship Kat has through LotS, the sweet moments and hard moments Meg has with a boy she dates—all of them felt fully realized and full of heart, like this book itself.
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