Fourteen-year-old Julian Harlow looks "like an anime character," with shiny black hair almost falling into his "enormous round eyes." He is shy, sweet, and secretly good at singing and storytelling, but his uncle is beating the light, and life, out of him. Adam Blake, a high school senior, knows and loves Julian because the boy came to live with him and his mother as a foster child after his parents were killed. But it's been five years since Julian's abusive uncle took him in, and the boy, young-seeming for 14, is decidedly worse for wear.
This is not a story to turn away from. Readers will fall in love with Julian. He's unassuming, creative, dyslexic--and terrified. The story alternates between Julian's and Adam's perspectives, and as readers start to see how much Adam--popular, cheerful, "ADHD-fidgety" and compassionate--truly cares for Julian, their hearts will grow three sizes larger. Debut author Robin Roe's writing is extraordinary, clear, funny and insightful. Her sentences pack a wallop: "It's strange how many ways there are to miss someone. You miss the things they did and who they were, but you also miss who you were to them." And, "Maybe instead of accelerating your age, pain won't let you grow." And, "I see everything you do" as a profession of love.
However brutal his particular story, Julian's trials as he lurches awkwardly into teendom are universal--feeling alone, keeping dangerous secrets, feeling timid and inadequate, needing love. A List of Cages is painful, devastating, beautiful and brilliant. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness