{"id":46620,"date":"2026-08-18T21:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T01:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46620"},"modified":"2026-08-18T21:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T01:43:12","slug":"review-of-fruitcake-by-rex-ogle-and-dave-valeza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=46620","title":{"rendered":"Review of Fruitcake, by Rex Ogle and Dave Valeza"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fruitcake_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fruitcake_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"171\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-46841\" \/><\/a><em>Fruitcake<\/em><\/p>\n<p>by Rex Ogle &#038; Dave Valeza<\/p>\n<p>Graphix, 2026.  240 pages.<br \/>\nReview written June 12, 2026, from a library book.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fruitcake<\/em> is another graphic novel memoir about Rex Ogle&#8217;s middle school years, following up on <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Nonfiction\/four_eyes.html\">Four Eyes<\/a><\/em> and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Nonfiction\/pizza_face.html\">Pizza Face<\/a><\/em>.  This one is about eighth grade, when all his friends were pairing up.<\/p>\n<p>And Rex, too, found a nice girl who liked him &#8211; but he couldn&#8217;t stop thinking about a boy he spent time with outside of school &#8211; and it was the boy who made him blush.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, his Abuela takes him to two different churches &#8211; one in his own neighborhood when Abuela is visiting, where the preacher says gay people will burn in hell.  Then at Abuela&#8217;s home church, the pastor says that God loves everyone.<\/p>\n<p>So Rex keeps trying to hide who he is &#8211; until he can&#8217;t anymore.<\/p>\n<p>This graphic novel is a quick read, but it&#8217;s got a very relatable story about a kid figuring out who he really is.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rexogle.com\/\">rexogle.com<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.davevaleza.com\/\">davevaleza.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1338575074\/sonderbooksco-20\" target=\"outside\">Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Find this review on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\">Sonderbooks<\/a> at: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Nonfiction\/fruitcake.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Nonfiction\/fruitcake.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer:  I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?page_id=23\">Subscribe<\/a> for more reviews and talk about books.<\/p>\n<p>Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fruitcake by Rex Ogle &#038; Dave Valeza Graphix, 2026. 240 pages. Review written June 12, 2026, from a library book. Fruitcake is another graphic novel memoir about Rex Ogle&#8217;s middle school years, following up on Four Eyes and Pizza Face. This one is about eighth grade, when all his friends were pairing up. And Rex, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,11,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-childrens-nonfiction-review","category-graphic-memoir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46842,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46620\/revisions\/46842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}