I received an ARC from Disney Hyperion via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 
 A List of Cages is a beautiful, touching debut novel and fighting back the tears is impossible. It's well written, there are parts that broke my heart and I can't help but shed tears on it. It's a story about two boys, Adam -- a senior student who has ADHD and Julian -- a dyslexic boy whose parents passed away and is now under the care of his abusive uncle. Also, he's Adam's former foster brother. 
 I love the friendship Adam and Julian shared in this book, their bonding is strong and genuine. These two boys are imperfectly perfect. Adam is a loyal, sincere, helpful and caring friend. His friends might not understand why he cares on a weird boy like Julian and yet, defends him like a big brother. He's concerned on Julian and feels there's something wrong. He always makes him comfortable whenever he hangs out with his friends. Such kindness brought happiness to Julian in his darkest moments. 
 Mostly, my tears are for Julian. He's aloof and people distance themselves from him. It really breaks my heart to see him lonely and no one is kind enough to him especially he lives with someone cruel. He's longing for love and kindness and he felt secured when Adam is around. I bawled more when Adam's friends finally come around and shown kindness to him. Deep down, Julian cries for joy and despite of them being mean at first, not once he's mad at them and instead, he remained humble. 
 Overall, this is really a great novel. I recommend you have a box of tissues if you're going to read it. I'm giving this 4.5 / 5 stars because the pacing is slow and it took me a while to get into it.