Amid magic and monsters, a queer seventh-grader discovers a world where he can be himself but has to decide if he will fight for it…even if it means becoming the villain. "Clementine’s story is part Peter Pan , part Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , part Coraline , and at the same time wholly unique." — Kirkus Reviews Clementine has always felt like the villain of his story. Most of the time, he’s a socially anxious kid who knows it’s not “normal” for a boy to wear pink shoes to school. While he’s there, his teachers won’t call him by the right name (even though Clementine is a boy’s name, if a boy has it), his classmates tease him about his obsessive love for spiders (even though they’re beautiful), and he’s the only one who can see the floating faces that haunt the surrounding woods. But all that changes when a boy named Beetle breaks through his bedroom window and warns him about monsters. Soon, Clementine is drawn into a world of magic and imagination. Every night in the woods, everything he and his new friends Beetle, Cricket, and Anise spend hours in a play-pretend world that seems to be seeping into reality. Clementine has never had a friend like Beetle—a boy who teaches him to howl at the moon, who dreams of being a hero and says the whole sky is beautiful while looking right at Clementine and not at the sky at all. But Clementine wants to use the power fueling their adventures to make things better outside the forest—not later, when he’s grown up, but now . And when he discovers the source of the magic, Clementine has to decide: Does he become a hero with Beetle and protect a world that hates him? Or does he finally become the villain, ready to build a new world whatever the cost? In this joyful and uninhibited celebration of imagination, empathy and all things monstrous, debut author Noah Corey tells the story of a queer kid who is exactly and exquisitely himself. This book is a love letter to villains and heroes, and all the ways they make us brave. "Clementine’s story is part Peter Pan , part Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , part Coraline , and at the same time wholly unique.... A dark and inviting tale for all the nonheroes out there." — Kirkus Reviews "For villains, heroes, and those occupying the space in between, Corey’s debut showcases that bravery comes in different forms and the greatest thing one can wield is the courage to be unapologetically, unequivocally oneself." — Booklist Noah Corey lives in Washington State with his husband (Markus), his dog (Potatoes), and his three cats (Wirt, Greg, and Beatrice). He feels passionately about outer space, insects, and fictional vampires. One On the very first day of seventh grade, at the very beginning of his first class, Clementine tried to take his seat like a normal person. He wasn’t sure if he pulled it off. There was a whole variety of things Clementine didn’t want people to notice about him (like that he was fidgety) (and sort of sweaty) (and wearing pink sneakers). But he did want people to absolutely understand two things the minute they met him: 1. Clementine was a boy’s name, thank you very much, and 2. He would get taller eventually, because boys in his family did eventually get tall, he promised. He really was very normal, and it wasn’t his fault he’d skipped a grade and also several growth spurts. To prove he was very normal , he wore his most regular red flannel, and his super-not-suspicious Loki T-shirt, and his only-a-bit-ripped-up jeans—which mostly covered the pink sneakers. That morning, he’d let his mom put flowery hair spray in his chin-length black hair. He’d even double-checked that his socks matched. He sat very still. He pretended he wasn’t sweaty. He ignored how frizzy and itchy and in-his-eyes his bangs were, despite all the spray. Most importantly, he didn’t immediately start talking about spiders in intricate detail, which had been his mistake the year before. (Normal kids talk about spiders a normal amount.) (Which apparently isn’t very much.) Clementine’s plan went perfectly until the bell rang, and a shockingly tall teacher started calling roll. The teacher was so tall because his legs were very, very long and spindly. He was wearing large square glasses and a thick gray cardigan over an even thicker blue sweater, and he looked very much like he was using his curly, blond-with-brown-roots hair to hide two smallish horns. He called out Clementine H. Hopeful . Clementine raised his hand in a profoundly average way. The teacher frowned. He called out Clementine H. Hopeful again. Clementine raised his hand higher. The teacher stared at him. Clementine stared back. His teacher had reddish brown skin, striking dark freckles, and off-yellow eyebrows. Only his frown was ugly. Clementine shook his hand a little. “I said Clementine .” “That’s me,” said Clementine. “Clementine’s a girl’s name,” the teacher sneered. Clementine fi