Crushed

Conklin, Melanie. Crushed
July 16, 2024 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Sophie Valentine lives in New York City, where her father and grandmother run a book store and her mother is a doctor. She and her best friend, Eve, attend MS477, a magnet school, but Eve has been absent since Thanksgiving without much of an explanation, only that she may have tried to hurt herself. Coming back after winter break is difficult, especially when Eve doesn't meet her at their usual spot. Eve has spent a lot of time with the "Crash Crew", a group of students who do ill advised YouTube challenges, and Sophie suspects that this, along with her crush on the obnoxious Chaz, had something to do with her absence. When Sophie has a panic attack in the hallway, one of the Crew posts it to social media, and she is mortified. She's had panic attacks before, but doesn't want to tell anyone. Away from school, there is some stress as the bookstore needs some renovations that are hard to afford on the heels of the pandemic. One of the fire code violations that needs to be addressed is changing the "wall of love" where people can leave notes; it's because of this wall that Sophie's grandparents met, so her grandmother is very protective of it. When Sophie sees Eve participating in other challenges, like climbing milk cartons behind a store, she alerts the school when Eve gets hurt, and Eve is furious. This further strains their relationship, although Sophie does find an ally in Stewart, a girl in her gym class who used to be part of the Crew but now thinks they are jerks. She is very helpful to Sophie when she has a panic attack. Sophie's class is doing a mock murder investigation, and Sophie starts using the techniques from class to try to figure out what is going on with Eve. There turns out to be a lot, and when a lot of harassment is uncovered, Eve finally has to go to her mother and grandmother for advice. Will she and some of the other girls who are tired of the boorish behavior of Chaz and the Crew be able to change the school culture?

Strengths: Conklin has a trigger warning for harassment and self harm at the beginning, which is helpful. Like Dee's Maybe He Just Likes You, this is an interesting look at how middle school students try to deal with their own problems, and are often unable to do so without some help. Sophie's panic attacks, which started during the pandemic, are realistically portrayed, and are something that we see more and more in schools. The fact that Eve and Sophie's individual problems are causing rifts in their friendship is true to life, but it was good to see Sophie make a new friend in Stewart. The bookstore was delightful, and Gram was a well developed character. She was a good mix of not wanting to change (she takes years to clean out the closet of her deceased husband) and being able to help Sophie navigate current issues. The mother is also a good character, and I love the matter of fact way she deals with Sophie's problems. Young readers will relate to the Crash Crew, and hopefully be appalled at the amount of damages caused by YouTube stunts in the school. Only time will tell whether or not these stunts will ever seem dated. 
Weaknesses: I'm surprised that the girls didn't call out the harassment right away. My mother, born in 1934, taught me to never put up with anything from anyone. There was a lot of casual, daily sexual harassment, complete with inappropriate jokes in the 1970s: just watch the television show from 1978, On Our Own, to see this is action. I passed this on to my own daughters. Since today's mothers were raised when there was less of this, do today's girls not get this lesson delivered as often as it once was? Or is it the effects of social media that are making this (and everything) worse?

What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed New York City based problem novels like Mackler's Not If I Can Help It  or Stead's Goodbye, Stranger.