A Good Kind of Trouble is from the perspective of Shayla. Shayla is in seventh grade with her two best friends, Julia and Isabella. They call themselves the United Nations, and they tell each other everything, like Shayla’s crush on Jace. Shayla has her perfect image of seventh grade: Jace will become her boyfriend; the United Nations will stick together and conquer the school, and Shayla won’t get into any trouble, whatsoever (she hates trouble).

But suddenly Julia starts hanging out with another group of friends, Jace seems to be crushing on Isabella, and people at school have started saying Shayla’s not black enough. And then a trial verdict comes out, deciding that a police officer who was filmed shooting a black man for no reason was innocent. Will Shayla be able to bring her perfect seventh grade year back into focus, or will her whole world fall apart?

A Good Kind of Trouble discusses a lot of the pressures of being a person of color. In some cases, one assumption can be the difference between life and death. It explains really well how terrible that is, especially for a younger audience, and that’s really important.

This book is for sixth-ninth grade readers, but anyone older than that who would like to read it would enjoy it, too. There are 358 pages.

I give this book five out of five bookworms.

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