Lily has always felt in-between. She looks Vietnamese but thinks of herself as white – her parents adopted her from an orphanage in Vietnam. Her parents both have good jobs, but her best friend Brit is always super broke. When Karim – a guy she’s liked for a long time – shows interest in her for the first time, Brit starts to hang out with some grade-twelves who wear T-shirts saying "white pride." After Karim confronts Brit about her racism, a series of fear-induced misunderstandings lead to a lockdown, and Lily finds herself truly in-between, forced to make seemingly impossible choices about whose side she's on, and which friend she's going to believe. Set in a school facing the real-life challenges of immigration, income inequality, and fears of violence,
The In-Between
is a realistic, complex, and believable exploration of the conflicts students navigate in contemporary schools. Like Youssef’s international hit
Jabber
, seen by hundreds of thousands of young people across North America and Europe and winner of Berlin's Ikarus Prize,
brings humour, sensitivity, and a deftly authentic ear to the adult-sized questions all young people must begin to confront as they enter their later teens.