The Long Run

Gr 10 Up–Sebastian Villeda, also known as “Bash the Flash,” is a senior on the track team and is ready to run away from his problems just as fast as he executes his events. Sandro Micelli, a classmate and track teammate, has a caring heart and a complicated home life. Navigating all the uncertainties of senior year in their own self-knowing ways, Sebastian and Sandro form an unexpected bond that helps bring clarity to not only their futures but their own personal journeys. By writing it as a multi-perspective novel, Acker effortlessly allows readers to see the narratives of both protagonists develop through sprinkles of Spanish to highlight the differentiation of cultures, vivid imagery through descriptive writing, and candid dialogue both internally and externally. This YA LBTQIA+ novel is written with the honesty and transparency of not only teenage emotions, hardships and romances, but to the evolving growth of two boys from different backgrounds being there for one another.