Anna Paulson knows what it means to be left out.

In a world obsessed with conformity, her cerebral palsy makes her an easy target for bullying, pity, and the ache of invisibility. At school, survival often means enduring the quiet violence of exclusion. At home, her father offers “word Band-Aids”—comforting sociological explanations that help make sense of a world that often feels impossible to understand.

But Anna isn’t alone. With Blaze, her fierce, quick-witted friend, and Holly, an artist living with absence epilepsy, she discovers friendship that feels like a refuge—and a form of resistance.

Told in Anna’s sharp, funny, and devastatingly honest voice, Banished Monkey Island is a story about the cruelty of being cast aside, the bonds that help us endure, and the stubborn, necessary fight to be seen.