Princess of Baker Street by Mia Kerick is a touching story about two young teens journeys to find themselves, and to find acceptance. Back in elementary school, Eric and Joey used to be friends. Children grow up though, and what a child accepts, teenagers don’t. The Baker Street kids, who all used to be Joey’s friends, have turned on her and taken to bullying their former friend. All because Joey, male on the outside, identifies as female. She dresses and acts accordingly.
Eric’s just trying to fly under the radar. He remembers Joey fondly enough, but he can’t afford to be seen interacting with his former friend. Then the two get paired together class, and began studying together after school, to help Eric learn. Eric even spends Thanksgiving holiday with Joey and her family, because his mother has gone away. As they get reacquainted, things began to change between them. Is the rekindled friendship strong enough to pull the teens through the coming trying months.
This story was so sad! Poor Joey gets bullied just for being who s/he is. This resonated for me so much. That was me growing up. I was bullied for being different. I was an extreme introvert- quiet, shy, very intelligent- and I displayed therian traits on occasion. I’d learned to suppress those early on, but they still slipped out.
Eric, with his absent parents, resonated with me too. My parents were around, but they didn’t know what to do with an introvert therianthrope either. They ridiculed and mocked me, hoping to ‘make me stronger’, and to ‘act normal’. It only served to crush my sense of self-worth and make me wish to end things. Even to this day I struggle to heal my fractured self-worth, but it’s like carefully glueing tiny fragments back together, hoping the sherds don’t fall off again.
Even though bad things happened to both Eric and Joey, things resolved for the best for each of them. A lovely example of my favourite quote-
Auguries of destruction be a lullaby for rebirth.
~Key to Twilight
***Many thanks to the author and XPresso Tours for providing an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
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I’ve been hearing a little bit about this book, but this is the first review I’ve read. It sounds very interesting, but I think I would need to be in the right mood to read it because it does sound sad.
It was very good, but yeah you wanna be in the right mood.
I’m sorry I didn’t thank you sooner for this amazing review– I really thought I had. I’m so glad this story resonated with you. In many ways, I dug into the pain from my past to create the authenticity of Eric and Joey/Shaylee.
You did! I believe it was on the tour post. I like to be ornery and post tour promo post and review separately. It helps me keep better track of things. My sister is hoping to read it soon too 🙂
Thank you so much for hosting me and for sharing your story with your readers. What you endured as a youth sounds painful, but it makes you a person who is incredibly sensitive to others, and to characters like Joey. Your review brings to life the struggle I was trying to depict in The Princess of Baker Street.
Quite welcome! It was an endearing read that tackled a serious and necessary subject.
Thanks for being on the tour! 🙂
Thanks for having me!