Gross (And Other Complicated Feelings)

By NZinga Dee

First kisses are drafts. They can be revised.

Asha Williams is thirteen, almost fourteen, and officially has a boyfriend - kind of - whatever that means. She has opinions about almost everything, a best friend named Nee Nee who is the most loyal, most chaotic person she knows, and one important secret she doesn't know what to do with yet.

The secret is about Nee Nee's boyfriend, Derrick. Fifteen, varsity basketball, charming to everyone at school. Known to Asha as something more troubling. Nee Nee thinks the sun rises and sets on him. Asha keeps watching the way Nee Nee's face goes still sometimes, the way she laughs too quickly, the way she flinches at things she then explains away.

Gross. is a novel about first kisses that are awkward and first love that is quietly real and the difference between both. It's about a girl learning that keeping a secret 'to protect someone' and keeping it 'because she was scared' are the same thing - and both are wrong. And it's about what it costs to do the right thing when the right thing could change everything.

Alongside the heavy, there is joy: a birthday, a second kiss that is better than the first, a father who is trying in small and imperfect ways, and the warm ongoing presence of Dantay Pierce, who writes Asha poems she is keeping in a dedicated section of her journal.

Themes

Teen dating abuse and recognizing the warning signsThe ethics of keeping someone else's secretFirst love and the slow, honest language of real connectionComplicated relationships with absent or changed parentsThe courage it takes to tell a trusted adultFriendship as a chosen, active commitment

Best for: Ages 11 and up. Includes real talk section on teen relationship abuse and resource list. Essential for counselors working with middle schoolers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GTQCW669
• ISBN13: 9798253305027
• Release Date: March 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"