The thing about the historical erasure of Black influence or Black involvement is that it is so deeply ingrained that even when you try to be aware anThe thing about the historical erasure of Black influence or Black involvement is that it is so deeply ingrained that even when you try to be aware and learned about our contributions there always seem to be gaps still popping up.
I never in my life thought about Black homesteading until I came across this book.
I am aware that homesteading existed, but like many things I had not consciously thought about the fact that Black people obviously had to be homesteaders too. I mean, how else did they get out west in the first place? I've read a decent amount of historical romances by Beverly Jenkins that feature all Black towns out west yet I never made the connection about how exactly those towns came to exist or what it took for those people to found them.
I was absolutely tickled that this book cleared up an unexpected blind spot. Even more so when it turned out to be so well written.
Initially, I was not sold on the three points of view particularly as the earlier parts are more Lettie centric. But, as the story continued and the other two women started to take shape as actual characters, the fact that there were multiple viewpoints really helped to paint a broader, more well-rounded perspective on the whole endeavor. I also really liked that each woman represented a different facet of Black womanhood no less valid simply different because of the circumstances that each matured in.
I appreciated that Lettie's father, Thomas, was depicted with a lot of compassion and nuance. He made his mistakes. He could be traditional. He wasn't always the best husband. But, I liked that Cline-Ransome made sure that these aspects of his character did not exist inside of a vacuum. When reading historical fiction, context is essential. I was glad that the fact that our modern ideals were not projected onto a time period with unique and - on some level -incomprehensible complexities. It did not make him the most likeable all the time, but it made him real and the story richer for its authenticity.
A moving coming-of-age historical middle grade that exceeded my expectations thoroughly. I am more than comfortable recommending it....more
**spoiler alert** Like many people, I get mad at books I don't like. Over time that anger typically fades as I gain some distance from when I read it.**spoiler alert** Like many people, I get mad at books I don't like. Over time that anger typically fades as I gain some distance from when I read it. Writing a review can spark some of it anew as I am forcibly tapping into something that did not bring me joy. Even so it's generally more muted.
This book still gets my blood pumping to this day even months after the fact. I read this in July and the simple thought of it upsets me again. I could barely think about writing this review because I get hopping mad all over again. It's partially the wasted time, partially the fact that similar to Chester Keene Cracks the Code (also by Kekla Magoon, also not liked by me) I could not fathom what the author was thinking in putting this out for a middle grade audience.
The entire conceit of this novel is built on the erroneous and harmful idea that if your parent does not understand you as a child, they will absolutely never understand you.
Dally makes a horribly shortsighted decision to disappear into the past to live out her life growing up alongside her own grandfather before ultimately taking on the permanent position of librarian to the secret library because at twelve she's having normal, everyday conflicts with her mother. Most kids are going to reach a point where they start to recognize that the caregivers in their lives are fallible human beings. It's an important step in all caregiver-child bonds. But, kids should never be led to believe that change is not possible.
It is obviously true that there are times when change is not possible. It's true that there are kids who have abusive or otherwise deficient caregivers. It's true that kids should not be fed false hope or encouraged to hold out for a fantasy that an awful caregiver will ever become exactly what they need or want.
That being said, it is impossible at twelve for a child to draw this kind of permanent conclusion. Familial dynamics are so complex and multi-faceted. The kind of relationship I had to my own parents differed a lot from twelve to sixteen to twenty one to now. There were years in there where I wholeheartedly believed nothing would ever improve. Yet, I was completely, utterly wrong. If I had run away at twelve I never could have found that out.
Now, obviously children are experiencing everything for the first time so they lack perspective on the wider world out there. That's normal and totally expected. I don't blame Dally for feeling the way she does. What I'm upset about is the fact that the author ended a middle grade book this way. This kind of bittersweet, downer ending is way better suited to a more mature audience who could appreciate and understand the thematic significance. Particularly because while middle grade does not always have happily-ever-after happy endings, it's never this bleak.
And you have to categorize it as bleak because the only alternative is that a child is supposed to think there are legitimate merits to the decision Dally made which is even worse. Dally made the absolute wrong choice. You cannot even argue that she made the 'right' choice for herself because again, she's a kid who cannot predict the future. Especially since her mother never gave any indication she was beyond learning or growing.
I will admit that there is something in this messaging about listening to your kids or risk losing them forever except I think it's ridiculous that Dally's mother is a villain for trying to do right by her daughter in the best way she can when part of the reason she's even the way she is, is because Dally's beloved grandfather took pains to doom Dally to repeat this cycle.
In her journeys through the books Dally meets some of her ancestors. Eventually she connects with her grandfather. Like I alluded to above, towards the end of the novel on a journey through one of the books she chooses to stay with him in the past to adventure by his side, thereby completely rewriting history.
She becomes her grandfather's best friend, gets married, has kids, - all the major milestones -before retiring to be the permanent librarian at the Secret Library. Apparently, the library always chooses someone to be the librarian and you have to do it or stop coming to the library, but if I recall correctly something does keep drawing you to it so it's virtually impossible to avoid. However, you do have a bit of power over it in the sense that you could return at a later date giving yourself time to live a life before getting stuck.
Dally's reasoning for choosing to stay to live out her life in the past is because she 'realizes’ her mother will always be dismissive of her needs and she wants to have a real life before being forced to be the library keeper for as long as she's able.
This makes her grandfather a literal supervillain.
He has been in and out of the library - not to mention he's a library board member on some kind of secret council - since he was a child. You can't choose your own adventure in the secret library technically because the library kind of low-key guides you, but in literal decades of time spent visiting the library and hanging out with Dally I'd think that he'd have got the full story by the time his daughter is born. Yet, he does absolutely nothing to avoid completely robbing his daughter of her child.
He doesn't seem to care about her at all. All he cares about is Dally. And I'd argue he doesn't care about Dally that much because he actively sets in motion the events of the novel to make sure she'll end up choosing to live out her life in the past. Why would he want that for Dally? Why would he want that for his daughter? How is it good that his so-called best friend had to grow up with this deep emotional wound because he prioritized having Dally grow up beside him over what would be better for her overall wellbeing? I just can’t see how this man watched this little girl grow up and decided she would be better off not having her mother in her life when her mother is only cleaning up his mistakes.
He knew that the business was having financial problems. He had to know that those financial problems are part of what led to Dally's mother becoming so rigid. Instead of trying to fix it in order to leave her a better company to not force Dally down this path, he only gives her meaningless platitudes about not needing to worry so much and spending more time living than working. Except we're told at one point that she actually had to get him booted from the board which suggests that the situation was a lot more complex than he made it out to be so I'm not surprised that she blew him off. The fact that without her hard work thousands could potentially be out of work is brought up once, but quickly glossed over.
He actively encourages Dally to pursue this course of action by leaving her the letter that leads her to the secret library in the first place. When Dally’s father died he suggested that Dally’s mother move back into the great manor to help her in her time of need, and the fact that what seemed like an act of love was probably only done so he could manipulate Dally into the proper position was particularly insidious.
On a different yet not unrelated note, the main thread through Dally’s ancestor tour is following a little group of pirates. The two main pirates are the white captain and one of the Black crewmen who are in a secret relationship with one another. This was hard enough to swallow as we do not get much by way of backgrounds on either of these characters to explore how this relationship could be consensual considering the current circumstances - i.e. the fact that this has to be taking place in the period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade or some time soon after.
Magoon made it a thousand times worse when she introduced the fact that the white captain was not male, but was gender nonconforming. No specific terminology is utilized and there is not enough information to draw a precise conclusion about where this character falls on a spectrum. They go by he/him pronouns except part of this seems to be in order to get by as a pirate not necessarily because he identifies as a man and when this is revealed to Dally - the pirate gives birth - she asks him directly if he's a girl and he is generally noncommittal. Again, this could just be because he is lacking in proper terminology to communicate. But, it left me wrongfooted as this revelation opened up a whole can of worms that had no follow through.
I’m pretty sure the general idea behind this choice was to show that queer identities and unconventional families have always existed, but it was too complex a dynamic to be included in this book.
How these two individuals got together when one was white and assigned female at birth being raised potentially on the very same plantation where they were being taught that Black man are essentially animals to use as they please, has dubious connotations. Especially considering the fact that there is a terrible history of white women raping and coercing Black men into horrific ‘relationships’ with them.
I’m not sure this relationship could ever work for me personally as the author would have to work exceedingly hard to overcome an almost insurmountable ethically and morally compromised dynamic that is interwoven into the very fabric of the country to justify that an equal friendship was possible let alone a romance.
Middle grade can be weighty. I’ve read fantastic middle grade on major, burdensome topics handled masterfully. But, I cannot think of any way to do this particular plot point justice without giving the intended readers a far too simplistic view of slavery and/or romanticizing these two individuals' choices. It is much better suited for young adults or even adults instead as those two age groups would allow for the mature exploration that this concept desperately needed.
I got the impression Magoon wrote this only with gender identity and sexuality in mind while completely ignoring the intersectionality of race.
I think making the fact that Dally was intended to be the new librarian the twist hurt the novel tremendously. This could have been a very interesting story about Dally recognizing the weight of what it takes to truly pursue what you want out of life where the morality and burden of her choice were explored in the actual narrative. Instead, the book plays out as a mostly normal if not a bit average middle grade until randomly pulling the rug out from under the reader by eschewing all nuance in favor of an unnecessary shock. Of course, all of this still does not work unless the age group is upped a bit and Magoon is willing to dive deeper into her themes.
I could say more, but I will leave it here. If you got this far thinking I would recommend this book I’ve got a bridge to sell you. ...more
The Cursed Moon is a 2024 Sunshine State pick for Grades 3-5 which was my entire basis for picking it up.
I found it decent enough though largely rote.The Cursed Moon is a 2024 Sunshine State pick for Grades 3-5 which was my entire basis for picking it up.
I found it decent enough though largely rote. Often times it is fairly easy to get an idea of where a middle grade book is going to go either because it is for children, because the author is writing a common premise for the genre or some mixture of both. So I knew the trajectory of the story thematically even if I did not know exactly how every single little story beat would play out.
All of this is to explain partially why I found the story rather average. There is nothing wrong with being average. I'd wager the majority of books are simply average. It's hard to write a book at all, let alone one that is truly fantastic. Admittedly, when you read as much middle grade as I do and have similarly high standards, it is also harder to be dazzled.
Even so, The Cursed Moon does have an interesting angle that could have been explored that it chooses to ignore so I feel comfortable in being more negatively inclined towards it than I normally would be.
The underlying emotional thread of the story is what kind of relationship Rafa wants or should have with his neglectful mother Nikki who will be released from prison soon. Rafa is adamantly opposed to any kind of reconciliation. The rest of his family is desperate to give Nikki another chance.
The problem is that all we ever get is reasons why Rafa should never forgive her and is correct to be on guard, even though by the end we are supposed to understand that Rafa was being close-minded out of fear.
I disagree with the idea that abusive parents are owed a relationship with their children or even a chance to fix it. I was wholeheartedly on Rafa's side about not trusting her especially as charming anecdotes like, him having to sell the literal shirt off his back to a group of random teenagers to get ten dollars to buy food for him and his sister after their mother abandoned them for hours in the car they were living in, would occasionally come up.
I did not like how much the key people in his life - little sister Brianna and his abuelos - tried to lowkey pressure him to be more accepting without the narrative making it explicitly clear it was wrong for them to do so. It is okay to be hopeful. It is okay to want to rebuild a relationship with a person who hurt you. It is okay to give them another chance. But, that is a personal choice that should be made on an individual timeline.
If Nikki has changed or is going to be a good mom she should be able to accept combative attitude and behavior. It is part of the healing process and is deserved. This book instead modifies Rafa to be more receptive before Nikki returns without proving that that trust is not misguided in the first place.
I think it coasts a lot on the fact that many people do not view neglect in the same way as abuse even though most neglect is also abusive. It also attempts to subtly undermine a lot of weight to Nikki's actions by highlighting her addiction.
Regardless of this distinction, the damage is the same so intentions or motivations don't much matter when you consider impact. I can be sympathetic to the way addiction works while simultaneously not allowing her to dodge accountability for what are still, at the end of the day, her choices.
The book ends without a single word on the page from this woman. How can I possible believe that she has turned over a new leaf without even an apology? Rafa has all these letters from her he refuses to open. Why not have him at least open one up so we can better understand where she is coming from? She says she's changed? Let the reader be the judge of how likely that is.
Better yet, why not have her be released at the beginning of the book and instead of the scary story being about a park caretaker, let it be a caretaker as in parent to create parallels between Rafa's experiences with her as a parent in the past vs present day and the nightmare he has unleashed? I honestly thought when I read 'The Caretaker' as the title of the monster that that was going to be the plot.
This book promotes the idea that you should always be willing to give people chances because they might mean it, but they don't actually have to do any work. Actions are far more important than words. As actively demonstrated in the story when Rafa's single happy moment of his mother is when he fell down the stairs and at the hospital he overheard her promising God if he was okay she would do better only for her to relapse again a month later, words are ultimately meaningless without follow through.
Being willing to risk disappointment is a necessary part of life because meaningful relationships are impossible without vulnerability. So Rafa - and by extension the reader - do need to learn this lesson except I really think the book does him a disservice by putting so much of the onus on him when he is the child. Particularly when you consider the fact that he already has taken on so much responsibility for his mother, in general, due to her abandonment. It is extremely unfair that in the one instance where he is finally safe enough to be the angry, resentful child he is expected to suck it up because he must be the ‘grown-up’ his mother forced him to be through her abuse.
Family therapy is mentioned to ease the transition and work through the complicated feelings which is great. But, again, because the entirety of the story takes place before Nikki ever arrives we never actually get to read about Rafa expressing himself or being validated for his anxiety in a therapy session. Most of the book is Rafa grappling with this perceived threat to this safe space he has established while his abuelos and sister are quietly (and not so quietly) disappointed in him for not being the bigger person.
If you’ve ever read Becoming Naomi Leon, I kept imagining Rafa’s mother like Naomi's and we all know how that story ended.
All in all, a generally fine story that had a chance to stand out that was squandered. I find the overall message regarding his mother harmful, however, I think sketchy messaging is simply part and parcel for the Sunshine State awards. For example, last year’s pick Escape completely ignored domestic violence against the main character by his father.
This is the worst book on the list I’ve read so far, but to keep it in perspective it is not even close to being one of the worst books I’ve ever read....more
TW: semi-graphic attempted sexual assault, many references to potential sexual assault and rape, period-typical racism
Kemosha of the Caribbean has a TW: semi-graphic attempted sexual assault, many references to potential sexual assault and rape, period-typical racism
Kemosha of the Caribbean has a fantastic concept. A former slave taking back her power in a time when she is viewed as little more than a slightly smarter horse at best and a vessel for all manner of disgusting sexual depravities at worst is not only compelling, it’s important.
A Black woman is rarely allowed to have this level of agency in historical fiction. And young Black people deserve stories where they get to see themselves in the past without being shackled by realism. There are so many white stories where kids or teenagers are not limited by the reality of the era and allowed to be heroes or find period-atypical happiness. When I first picked up this book I was delighted to see an opportunity for a Black author and Black character to do the same.
Unfortunately, the concept is the only good part of the story.
Kemosha was unbelievably frustrating as a character. She was extremely naive which was to be expected at the beginning, however, as the story went on she never grew. She felt much younger than her actual age because of how limited her view of the world was in spite of what she experienced. Everything was so black and white with her that it made her very unlikeable.
For example, she has a falling out with Ravenhide because she’s upset that he and the crew murdered everyone in a village. They did not need to do so, technically speaking, because the village was not the end goal, but Ravenhide says that some of the men could not be curtailed. He maintains that he did not murder anyone in the village, but Kemosha refuses to believe him. (It is never revealed if Kemosha is just stubborn or if Ravenhide is lying. I believe Wheatle wants us to side with Kemosha based on the way the entire book is written, but I do not automatically feel that way since Kemosha is known to never listen to anybody else once she’s made up her mind).
She is explicitly told before signing up for the voyage that the goal of this trip is to murder Spanish men for their gold and that women will even be violated as part of the journey. She gets on some high horse with Ravenhide about how he should be fighting for something important when she was perfectly fine with these men being murdered and women raped as long as she got money before witnessing the result herself. She argues that the people in that village should not have died because these people didn’t want to fight, they only wanted to live their life by the sea side.
Except she has no way of knowing that. She’s told to stay on the ship during the initial raid so she doesn’t know the details. She also has no interest or understanding whatsoever in the larger global and political machinations at play between the English and Spanish nor does the book seek to elucidate on the matter either. Despite a complete lack of knowledge on the topic she sees fit to judge a man who has done nothing except show her unbelievable kindness and grace.
A Black man who, mind you, had his family utterly massacred by the Spanish and his sister literally raped to death by those same men. A Black man who in spite of his freedom is still at risk everyday, the same as Kemosha, if the white men were to suddenly turn on him. You cannot apply the same system of morality to the past in this manner. Is it objectively incorrect to take his suffering out on (potentially) innocent victims? Sure. But, to demonize him for it when it is unconfirmed he actually slaughtered any of the villagers and when he has every reason to hate every Spanish person he encounters regardless of their perceived blamelessness is a very shallow, close-minded way of looking at a very complicated issue.
Kemosha can be upset about this. Hearing that people will die and seeing the outcome with your own eyes is different. Also, Kemosha having a different opinion generally speaking should be a good thing because that’s where conflict and character development can come from.
But, the problem is that Kemosha is presented as unequivocally correct when she is not. In the end Ravenhide is shamed into coming to her with his head hung low for his ‘sins’ while she is allowed to lord over him as morally superior for actions she will never be able to comprehend. I think it’s harmful to promote such a myopic perspective to the intended demographic for what is such a nuanced subject. Especially when you consider how much teenagers trend toward ignoring complexity in order to avoid the discomfort of acknowledging their failings.
Kemosha is always right. Her obstinate behavior is a perfectly acceptable quirk of her personality rather than a facet of her character that needs to be improved. It makes for a tedious reading experience when the main character is constantly being rewarded for making things difficult for everyone else around her.
The romance is terrible. It is one of the worst cases of insta-love I have ever read. It is particularly terrible because it being a lesbian relationship when Kemosha previously was unaware she could have such feelings for a woman should have a lot more impact on her overall character. There is no way that it should be so easy for a woman in the 1600s to completely embrace her love for a woman. I can suspend a lot of disbelief, but this was a bridge too far when the racism and misogyny are so realistically established. I cannot for one second believe that there would be no vague sense of internalized homophobia.
Isabella is purely a trophy for Kemosha. As the reader, you are told nothing about her feelings, her desires for her life or what her basic personality is. Kemosha meets her on page 90 in which they have one singular conversation over the next 10 pages where Ravenhide is present the majority of the time. On page 192 Kemosha returns from the voyage totally in love with Isabella, Isabella randomly returns her feelings and they proceed to have sex immediately. This is only their second time meeting. It’s been months since they last saw one another. Yet, now they’re pledging their undying love for one another? It’s ridiculous.
It was also very obvious that Kemosha viewed Isabella as an extension of herself not a fully fledged person.
Isabella asks Kemosha to cut her hair and Kemosha is reluctant to do so. She even states:
“I found it harder to slice Isabella’s hair than kill Captain Tate”.
She even starts crying. Why would you care about your significant other cutting their hair to this extent? Especially when it was done for Isabella’s safety as her long, beautiful hair made her stand out to the men at Port.
Then later when the two have a disagreement. Kemosha wants to go with Edward Caspian to purchase a boat. Caspian promises he’ll do it, but Kemosha cannot come with him because they will draw too much suspicion being a white man and free Black girl.
‘Isabella sat beside me. She held my hands and gazed at me for a little while before she spoke.
”Debes permiterle comprar solo el bote,” she said, You must allow him to buy the boat alone.
“No,” I said. “Why you talking like this, Isabella? Me have to go wid him. Misser Caspian love him drink too much.”
“No! Kemosha!” Isabella shouted at me. For a moment I was shocked. I’d never imagined she would raise her voice at me. I glared at her hard.
She shook her head. “Debes confiar,” she added. You must trust.
Could this be the same Isabella who mek beautiful love to me? I snatched my hands away from her, stood up and marched to the back of the yard.’
She actually gets mad that Isabella contradicts her. That’s not normal behavior for a healthy relationship. Yet, because the two getting together is written in such a rushed fashion the entire baseline of the relationship is just Isabella doing whatever Kemosha wants. It’s expected Kemosha would be surprised that Isabella has her own opinions when Isabella’s defining trait is accommodation.
(Literally when we first meet her, she is terrified of sailing because she was kidnapped and forced across the sea. Yet, by the end she’s ready to sail with Kemosha to her island of freedom with no mention of her previous fear or what might have changed her mind when her fear had kept her landlocked in Jamaica for over a year.)
I just don’t see why Wheatle bothered to include this point of contention between the two in the last twenty pages. There is absolutely no time to rectify this imbalance properly. All it does is reflect poorly on Kemosha. She is all about doing whatever she wants, but cannot handle when someone else exercises a similar right to autonomy. This is the end of the book. Shouldn’t she have learned something by now?
I never read YA any more; Kemosha of the Carribbean reminded me exactly why. It’s a book that is coasting on the originality of its premise and not much else....more
Poetry that understands the genre is what you make of it. There is no topic that can't be a poem, no idea that can't be explored, no character too outPoetry that understands the genre is what you make of it. There is no topic that can't be a poem, no idea that can't be explored, no character too outlandish. It's everything, but the kitchen sink (and even that too sometimes.)
While the whimsy suggests a younger audience, the clever turn of phrase and witty humor leans more toward an older audience who would be able to understand the subtle complexity. A younger readership can laugh at the surface level silliness, but would miss out on the competency of the execution.
I gave this 5 stars even though I was not particularly moved by the collection overall because it fulfills its purpose and is competently constructed regardless of my personal enjoyment. I was amused by many of the poems. But, reading it all in one sitting may have unwittingly put a ceiling on my potential to be entertained. ...more
A factual yet upbeat overview on all things period. Whether you are a seasoned veteran, a first timer or are a non-menstruating individual that is simA factual yet upbeat overview on all things period. Whether you are a seasoned veteran, a first timer or are a non-menstruating individual that is simply curious, the entire spectrum of potential period problems are covered. Interspersed with real-life questions and anecdotes from people with periods, the information is not only accurate, it's funny and messy and complicated - just like a period!
The comprehensive breakdown any child who will eventually menstruate (or any child who will eventually know someone who menstruates) should have. It is a foundation off of which to build further conversations about other important physical, mental or biological developments such as how bodily autonomy should work, when is the right time to have sex, and/or challenging the gender binary.
It is best for a younger audience to be armed before it may occur, however, it is also a useful resource for all children no matter the age due to how much of female anatomy is being purposely obfuscated nowadays. I highly recommend it. I absolutely could see little me vibing to this (and let me tell you I certainly could have used it). ...more
I read Hatchet for the first time when I was in the sixth grade. I remembered the experience fondly, but no details outside of there being a plane craI read Hatchet for the first time when I was in the sixth grade. I remembered the experience fondly, but no details outside of there being a plane crash and the knowledge that at the end (view spoiler)[Brian is rescued (hide spoiler)]. After thinking on it off and on for years I finally found the wherewithal to read it this month (i.e. April 2024).
I liked it quite a lot despite the intervening time. I was immediately immersed in Brian's story not just because he was going through something traumatic, but the way that Paulsen described his circumstances could be so evocative. I found the repetition of phrases very annoying and did not remember it at all from my first readthrough yet it was weirdly compelling? Like I think it was a good way to emphasize Brian's mental state even while I was frustrated by the circularity.
Survivalist fiction is very popular for kids nowadays (it could have been popular then too, but I don't recall there being much of it when I was 11 in like 2009 so I doubt it was huge in the 80s either) and this is a cornerstone of the genre in many ways. It can be a heavy read depending on how empathetic a person you are, but I would say it's an easy read overall in that it moves quickly and isn't particularly graphic. A even-keeled recommendation from me though not an emphatic one....more
The thing about The Unsettled is that it reads just like any other literary fiction book you could pick up.
Like most literary fiction I have encounterThe thing about The Unsettled is that it reads just like any other literary fiction book you could pick up.
Like most literary fiction I have encountered it’s primarily character focused, functioning mostly as an extended character study. On its face, there’s nothing wrong with that. The book makes it clear from the get go that it is an exploration of characters in a specific point in time as they react to the circumstances of the premise that Mathis has established. In short - I knew what I was getting into.
And I enjoy character studies. I like seeing why people do things; what drives them, how they justify their decisions, the breaking point after a traumatic event, etc. The flip side of literary fiction often is that not a lot by way of plot has to happen since it’s about the characters more than anything.
While I understand this narrative convention intellectually, on a personal level I enjoy when events actually occur in a book I’m reading. Obviously people can write what they want to write and they write what they feel is the story they need to share or the one that they are best suited to share. Or from a less altruistic yet no less valid perspective, they will write what they feel will sell.
But if interesting things aren’t going to happen, the book isn't written in a particularly dynamic way or exploring a unique point of view then it leaves me questioning what the point of writing the book even is if the book is going to turn out exactly like every other literary fiction novel where a woman has a poor relationship with her mother and it causes her to inflict trauma on her child. You can argue that the time period or the characters being Black or even the author being Black is what makes the difference. But, from my perspective that had little impact on the overall story beats.
Like Cas being a part of the Black Panthers previously is functionally no different from if he was white and part of some racist, supremacist group or just some random cult vs Black nationalism. The consequences and ripple effect is nothing specific to being Black or the fact that he was in the Black Panthers. The prose did not shine enough to make the telling of his story investing.
The prologue was a mistake or rather, the prologue as executed was a mistake. It completely spoils the trajectory of the three major characters. From there as you read you can draw conclusions about the other minor characters. I always knew where the ending was going so I was mostly waiting to get there rather than actively experiencing the book as it unfolds.
I'm not one to say that originality is particularly important. I can read the same concept over and over and still find some enjoyment in the book even if I’ve read a version of it before. Sometimes it's the way the author portrayed their specific characters or the specific way their characters are experiencing the premise that still hooks me in.
I read a lot of middle grade where a kid feels unheard in their family dynamic. What keeps me reading that exact concept over and over is that there is so much variety in why a kid is unheard or what their family dynamic is. The kid could be neurodivergent, the kid could be queer, the kid could physically not be able to speak. The family could be two biological parents, two adoptive parents, divorced parents, no siblings, step-siblings, half siblings. The ever changing match-ups and how an author chooses to put their vision into practice is what makes it interesting even if the basic idea is the same.
To me the mark of a decent or pretty good writer is the ability to effectively communicate a concept - The plot is paced well, it is consistent with its own logical framework, and/or the characters experience meaningful arcs. It might be average, but that does not mean it’s bad or that I did not have a good time reading.
The caveat is that originality often is what makes a book memorable or life-changing. Ultimately, The Unsettled was standard fare. I don’t regret reading it, but I was not enriched by reading it either....more
**spoiler alert** Everything interesting about this book goes up in smoke at the 50% mark at which point it is revealed that all of the interesting sc**spoiler alert** Everything interesting about this book goes up in smoke at the 50% mark at which point it is revealed that all of the interesting science fiction dystopian racial allegory stuff is actually just a traumatized child's way of coping with the traumas dealt by COVID-19.
I've read fantastic stories that play with fact, fiction, and reality to send a message or convey an idea, but the problem with Gone Wolf is that it's so firmly segmented that instead of the revelation augmenting the story, it takes away. It's suddenly like you're reading a totally different book that is not only far less compelling, it's also utterly dull as the entirety of the back half is devoted to totally retreading all the mythos to give you the ‘real’ story.
It's now painfully realistic in the most burdensome way imaginable. The fun, cool, sci-fi universe is dissected with a fine tooth comb and the author makes sure to go through every single aspect and relate to its real counterpart. It was not only frustrating for it to take this abrupt turn it was boring because it was immediately clear to me what the connections were without needing it to be spelled out directly.
Even taking into account that this is for kids and I’m an adult, based on the writing style in the first half, the kids that are likely to pick this book up in the first place would not need to be spoon fed the correlations.
I was grievously disappointed by Gone Wolf - the initial concept was so strong and had some really thoughtful commentary to make about the utility of the Black body in a white world. I would only recommend this book to people who are not bothered by 'it was a all a dream' endings.
For an example of this concept i.e. trauma manifesting as a magical reality in order to avoid the reality of the situation, I would highly recommend Moonflower by Kacen Callender instead....more
Lotus Bloom fails because in the conflict at the core of the story the side Lotus is not on is so obviously correct yet the book tries to frame her asLotus Bloom fails because in the conflict at the core of the story the side Lotus is not on is so obviously correct yet the book tries to frame her as a hero regardless.
Lotus is a violin aficionado. She gets invited to the new performing arts school, Atlantis, that was recently built in her neighborhood. Her best friend Rebel is against the school because it came at the cost of the middle school, MacArthur, already in the community. Lotus understands where Rebel is coming from, but she’s excited to get this chance and is a master at keeping her head down. As per the synopsis, after running into problems at her school that force her to realize that making waves is sometimes necessary, she learns to speak up.
Lotus’ final conclusion is that ultimately Atlantis should have still been created because MacArthur could not have provided the specialized performing arts that she and the students there needed - the two schools just need to be able to coexist in a way that benefits MacArthur.
This completely misses the point of the entire argument at the center of the novel. Atlantis absolutely should not have been created. It’s a multi-million dollar school. The whole point of Rebel’s protest is that instead of making this school they could have funneled that money into the old school. If they had funneled that money into the school from the beginning like they should have then all of that specialized performing arts programming that Lotus loves could have existed at MacArthur which would completely erase the need for Atlantis.
Lotus simultaneously states that it’s wrong that the school is being left to waste away because it’s in a poorer, diverse part of the neighborhood yet agrees that the local government was correct to not put that money into it because it couldn’t have provided what she needed anyways because of the lack of money that the local government was actively withholding. That makes no sense. If they put the money into it then she would have had what she needed there. So no Atlantis was not a needed at any point.
The ‘good’ ending is supposed to be that Atlantis is working on outreach programs to spread their resources to the other schools. Except while this is a decent solution based on these current specific circumstances, it ignores the fundamental fact that this solution is stemming from a racist framework.
Rather than allocate funding to schools that they deserve, this new school gets to have total control over what is distributed or shared entirely at their discretion. And when the school is majority white in its student base, majority white in staff, majority white in admin, majority white in school board, in government, etc, then it just becomes another facet of systemic inequality leveraged against them. They are ‘allowed’ to use services that should be a right not a privilege, how kind of their (probably) white overlords.
The book tells the reader that a flawed, imperfect resolution is a perfectly happy ending. I don’t care if Lotus enjoys her school or wants to stay there. Very few kids want to be at a school that is falling apart. I just think that it’s harmful to present an outcome that is only offering up a band-aid as equal to an outcome that would have obliterated it entirely.
If this was presented as this compromise is the best that the schools can hope for, but at the end of the day it isn’t enough I would have been fine with that. We shouldn’t eschew something good because it’s not everything we wanted - let’s live to fight another day and all that. Instead the book chooses to promote the idea that a ‘good enough’ outcome is actually the best outcome.
Rebel is set up like a bitter, immature child for not being happy with how Lotus handled the situation, but I thought that was so unfair to her character to make her out to be belligerent when Lotus was still frustratingly dismissive of the bigger picture. An individual win is the end goal only if we’re not discussing a collective obstacle or if it is acknowledged to be a stepping stone.
Lotus is selfish for choosing this school over the larger cause. That said, everyone has to be selfish sometimes. It’s not inherently bad to choose yourself especially when it’s a great opportunity or even when it will mean other people will lose out. Lotus did not make the best decision for everyone, she made the best one for her. Which is 100% fine. She’s a little girl not the next Martin Luther King, Jr. However, I disagree with how the book chooses to frame her as a trailblazer when she’s at the beginning of her journey.
Aside from this the book tries way too hard to be relatable to the age group. There was a lot of forced slang and stereotypes. None of Lotus’ friends were fleshed out. All of them were given one off gimmicks that served as their entire personality. This was particularly true for Dion, the gay character.
I am not opposed to his flamboyance as many gay boys and men are flamboyant. Stereotypes are built on a grain of truth after all. What bothered me is that because all of Lotus’ friends were ‘blink and you miss it’ appearances it did not feel like an authentic portrayal - he was simply all stereotype. It didn’t help that later in the book when Winston does try to give him some depth she inadvertently implies that he is faking his flamboyance on some level with absolutely no follow through. I was left questioning if Dion was getting the support he needed at home or around him because amping up your personality because you perceive it as the only way to get noticed is not healthy long term. No expansion on that character attribute at all.
A lot of little plot points are like this. Lotus’ mother has a boyfriend Lotus doesn’t like that much. He seems nice enough, but he has not been there for her mother a lot lately. This is never resolved. He’s low-key set up to have a redemption arc in Lotus’ eyes when he stands up for her to her mother about her hair. Then he just disappears. No explanation of why he was so unreliable or if her mother dumped him or if he was truly a bad boyfriend in the end. I thought, for sure, it was shaping up to be him preparing a proposal then poof!
Lotus’ friend Mercedes is suspected of being a snake in the grass. They ditch her without question and there is never a confrontation. It made no sense that someone so casually mean would let several people abandon her without attempting payback or being verbally aggressive or even a simple inquiry as to why they suddenly left her behind.
Lotus’ new friend Fabiola who informs Lotus about Mercedes’ two-faced nature tells Lotus about her mother being sick immediately after meeting her. That is never followed up on. Fabiola never mentions her again after this one instance. Who knows what happened to her? We never even learn what she’s sick with.
Lotus’ bully Adolpho spreads racist memes and videos online about her. He never gets punished for this because the author decides to make him a sympathetic character and totally ignores that he did this. There is a huge gap between throwing little paper airplanes in her hair or even soliciting a group of kids to do the same because he’s jealous and actual bigotry. Is he racist? Does he harbor racist tendencies? Was he weaponizing racism without thinking about the ramifications?
Depending on the response to any of these questions my perception of his character and what I consider to be fair consequences can change massively. There is no exploration of where this behavior is stemming from. As such he is not held properly accountable for his actions.
On page 244 Adolpho’s mother slaps him which goes nowhere. It’s there purely to force the reader and Lotus into feeling bad for Adolpho so that his apology is accepted at face value. An apology that is literally on the second to last page, mind you.
During the apology, Adolpho says “But me and my dad told her she went too far and better fix it” regarding his mother being the one to spearhead the campaign against Lotus. Yet, there is nothing about whether or not the abuse will stop. Was that a one off instance? Does his dad know? I am not totally opposed to the inclusion, however, I felt it was harmful to not take steps to ensure that a child reader will not absorb that this is normal behavior for some parents and not worth discussing. At the very least, have her apologize or be horrified by her abrupt action.
I loved The Braid Girls and I enjoyed The Sweetest Sound as well as President of the Fifth Grade. I was bowled over by how much I did not like this entry in her bibliography. I thought for sure that it must have been her debut or early on in her career, but it’s actually one of her most recent works. My recommendation is to avoid this entirely and pick one of the ones I mentioned above....more
TW: vaguely graphic depiction of hacking humans with machetes and their dead bodies, fair amount of blood, cannibalism
Spoilers abound. Read at your oTW: vaguely graphic depiction of hacking humans with machetes and their dead bodies, fair amount of blood, cannibalism
Spoilers abound. Read at your own risk.
Perfectly serviceable read up until the last issue. At which point, I could no longer stave off some of the flaws I had been steadfastly ignoring.
I was not opposed to a happy ending but it needs to be earned and this one was not. It was far too rushed and was completely ludicrous based on the insidious nightmare Astor described no less than 3 pages beforehand. There is no way any of the staff, Petal or Joey, would be able to live in perfect harmony without the powers that be cracking down on Crestfall Bluffs immediately.
For a story that is satirizing how far capitalist enterprise may one day push us, it really undercuts its commentary by avoiding a more realistic ending. Again, a happy ending could have worked, but it required a lot more page time and issues that this did not have to dig further into the concept if that were the case.
The story was too limited in scope, leaving the critique feeling shallow and surface level. Joey never spoke to any staff other than Petal, which was in service of a love story that felt rushed. It would have been more interesting to dig into the stories and the history of their 'tradition' via the people it affected. Or even if Joey had talked to more rich people. It would have made for a fuller story to examine it from all points of view. I think the story would have benefitted immensely from being multi-POV.
For example, Joey has this big climactic moment with Astor's father where she tells him she's done trying to prove herself to him except that doesn't make any sense because the only other time she even talks about him 4 issues beforehand in issue 1. Otherwise, the two are never even seen together and have no conversations. Why not see his side of the story? Was he ever young and innocent to the ills of their community? Did he ever want it to change? Who started the tradition? Was it him? Was it his parents? His grandparents? What about his relationship with Astor? How does that parallel his own induction into this disgusting practice? He could have shared this with Joey to better groom her to be Astor's bride.
The story overall should have leaned further into its early plot point about Joey being ripe for exploitation herself because of her poor background by having her be more desperate to connect to the family and/or acting like them as the story played out. It would have allowed the reader to engage more with the themes and exemplified via the narrative Gailey's belief (taken from the author's note at the end of the volume) of how these systems seduce you into your own oppression.
It would have been an easy slam dunk to have her start ignoring Petal. That alone would have spoken volumes about Joey's state of mind without a word being spoken.
There also were times when the story seemed half baked in terms of development.
There's a point where a housekeeper needs to move closer to a hospital with a specialist for her son. Astor's father is unmoved and tells her she needs to continue to fulfill her contract. When she still tries to leave, he attempts to kill her.
This interaction doesn't make any sense.
This woman knows what these people are capable of. She knows the only way out of her contract is to retire. Why did she even tell the family she was leaving? Why not try to sneak out in the middle of the night? Does she expect them to continue to pay for her son's healthcare if she leaves? How will she pay for this specialist if she departs at that point? The whole conceit of the story is that the staff are poorer than poor.
This whole situation makes even less sense when it is revealed in the final issue that staff are forced to eat a little human meat too (once you eat the meat your body must have it at regular intervals or you will starve to death) so as to confine them further. How will she live near this specialist when she'll die soon after moving? On top of that, the entirety of Crestfall Bluffs is aware of the situation. Joey allows her time to run, but there is no way that no other staff or community members did not stop her when she was fleeing. Even if she were to get out of town somehow, Astor tells Joey that this practice is widespread among the upper echelons of the world everywhere. Would they not simply dispense someone to take care of her when she gets to where she's going? Or better yet, they could just go by everyday means and sue her into oblivion for violating a contract. This plot point is totally abandoned by the story when it could have highlighted how trapped Joey was and on a broader scale, how captive society is to capitalism: there literally is nowhere to go since the world runs on capitalism.
It's a very cool concept executed in a disappointing fashion. The art is neat, and the first issue rocks. It's short enough that I don't regret giving it a spin. Though, I wouldn't recommend it just because it won't take you long either. I won't say don't read it because it's not so bad as to make me warn people off, however, I will say make sure to moderate your expectations....more
Like the title states, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, focuses on the hidden history of women-led slave revolts. Historical recorLike the title states, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, focuses on the hidden history of women-led slave revolts. Historical records are a fraught business for historians, but one of the most under researched topics is how enslaved Black women were prone to violent uprising the same as enslaved Black men; it was just in a different way. Decades of mostly white cisgender male perspectives has led to biased interpretations of how Black women fought back against the oppressive weight of enslavement.
The book is framed as Rebecca Hall looking for answers to questions that 9 times out of 10 cannot be answered due to poor record keeping and/or general disinterest in how an event concluded based on a Black woman or women being involved. She provides a few stories interspersed throughout that are fabricated around the small bits of knowledge she is able to accrue and by using information about that time period that is already factually confirmed by other records, narratives, or accounts.
The nature of the topic means that there really is not a lot to go on so most of it centers around Hall and her experiences pursuing the records. She is often frustrated or resigned by the magnitude of the cruelty she must read though to build her work. I love straightforward, pragmatic prose normally because I find the frankness hard-hitting. That said, it did not work for me here because it felt like it was trying too hard to be evocative. I believe that Rebecca Hall was sharing her true feelings, but it tended towards the melodramatic on occasion for me.
When she would get upset at certain notes or letters I was unmoved because I was expecting it and she did not include anything I did not already anticipate as a feature of slavery. A teenager dying on the journey from Africa to America is sad, yes, however, it is the least of all things that could happen. I am a bit desensitized to slave narratives because of the amount of stories I have consumed at this point in my life so your mileage may vary in this regard.
I thought a series of fictionalized accounts of the stories she could find or one single fictionalized narrative would have made for a more interesting book. I did not much care for the framing device of her searching for the truth.
I did not like the art style as it often made it difficult to understand perspective, who people were or what was happening in a sequence. I think if it were in color it would have been easier to make out - the crosshatching was too heavy.
It's a good introduction to the concept. I do think it sparks a necessary conversation about how history is shaped by a variety of factors, least of all the 'objective' truth. I did feel educated somewhat by the end. I am currently reading Brooding Over Bloody Revenge (as of 12/25/23) and it is a much more thorough, in-depth exploration (as much as there can be when availability is so scarce compared to other matters of historical relevance) if that's something you're interested in....more
I won’t mince words: I did not like Control Freaks.
A book that is all about how important it is to value other people should actually take pains to deI won’t mince words: I did not like Control Freaks.
A book that is all about how important it is to value other people should actually take pains to demonstrate how the students come to recognize that value. The kids in Doug’s group do not grow closer to one another yet the book ends by telling me they are now good friends when there is no evidence to support this claim.
One easy way of connecting a group of disparate individuals together is by sharing experiences to find common ground. That never happens. These characters don’t learn anything about one another to grow closer. There are pockets that crop up - Doug’s best friend Huey predates the competition and Padgett seems to connect with Travis - but Liam is left out in the cold entirely. The nature of groups is that the relationships are not always equally as strong between each person - that’s fine. But, the group should have a basic level of kinship. Again, Liam sticks out like a sore thumb. He doesn't even get a POV chapter (more on that later). Literally no one talks to him inside the group unless it’s necessary and no one alludes to speaking to him outside the group either.
The competition - STEAMS - was alright, but it seemed to lose steam as it progressed. The very first task was very good and written in a very engaging manner. Subsequent tasks felt phoned in up until the final one. I was nowhere near as invested because the writing did not reflect the intensity of the competition. Also, even though Dr. Yee made a point to specify that every person in the group had to contribute to the task, the structure of STEAMS made it impossible for them to verify that. Huey and Liam were completely inconsequential overall to the group dynamic. They functioned fine enough, but there were like three tasks where one or both did not contribute significantly. STEAMS should have either had less teams to start so that the three adults observing could have monitored better or it should have involved tasks that had specific segmented parts to assign to members.
Doug’s family drama was interesting, but the conclusion made my blood boil.
Doug’s deadbeat father has shown up after years of minimal contact - ie. sending money - and has been a plague on his life since. He was a famous NFL football player until an injury took him out. He flew to California for an ESPN job and essentially abandoned his family from there. Doug’s mother remarried when Doug was two. He finally has decided Doug needs him in his life and showed up apropos of nothing at Doug’s birthday. Worse than that, in spite of literally not saying a word to Doug or his mother in years, he thought he could get full custody of Doug and Doug would just be hunky-dory torn away from the only family he has ever known to live with three complete strangers (his father, his stepmom and his stepbrother). My opinion of this man is lower than low.
Over the course of the novel, the central conflict for Doug is that his father does not respect his interest in inventing or really any cerebral endeavors. His father has this ridiculous notion that the only path to success is athleticism. (I found this to be such an insulting, ignorant take when decades of Black people fought for years to break into other fields outside of ones based on physicality). Doug thinks that if he wins the school competition and gets picked to be the first middle schooler ever sent to represent the school at the illustrious Gadget Con, his father will finally see that sports aren’t his thing.
As mad as Doug’s father made me, I was fine most of the book because he was obviously wrong and I knew that the matter would be handled eventually. The problem is that it’s handled in a way that is incredibly unfair to Doug.
Doug’s stepbrother TW struggles with writing. He threatened Doug to make him write a previous paper for him. He now needs him for another paper. Doug felt bad about the cheating and originally planned to say, no, but his father effectively forces his hand by making working on the paper a requirement for Doug to do. Through a series of mishaps, the wrong paper is sent in and the truth comes out. Doug’s father doesn’t tell the other adults in Doug’s life because his priority is making sure TW gets this paper in so he can continue to be on his football team. Instead he makes Doug come home with him, work on the paper in real time with TW and in spite of TW no longer needing Doug there to write the paper he tries to force him to sleepover and miss STEAMS the next day to finish it.
Doug calls his stepfather and that is nipped in the bud, thankfully, however, the whole cheating thing comes out. This is where the book sours irreparably.
Doug’s parents punish him for the cheating by grounding him and deciding even if he’s selected for Gadget Con he can’t go. I understand grounding him since regardless of intention he did do something he knew was wrong. But, taking Gadget Con away was beyond the pale.
As I established before, his father is an aggressive, stubborn person who flagrantly disrespects Doug’s agency often. I cannot stress enough how uncomfortable Doug was talking to him let alone standing up to him. Yet, his mother and stepfather decide that Doug deserves excessive punishment for feeling pressured and unable to tell them about what was going on. They really expect a twelve year old boy who has known his father less than a year to be able to decide the right thing to do in a complex conflict with him when the entire time that he’s known him Doug’s mother has pushed Doug to make peace with him. If this is the key to his fathers’ love then Doug is going to do it. Most kids would do anything to earn parental regard.
I thought it was wild that his father got to yell at Doug and basically kidnap him and refuse to engage in his interests only for Doug to be kept from something he earned for not being ‘strong’ enough to tell his parents about what was going on in the face of such overwhelming pressure.
His mother explicitly tells Doug that he and his father are a lot a like and they need to find a compromise. That’s utter hogwash. This man doesn’t know his son at all. Compromise is for people who have spent real time together. It is not for a man who has never interacted with his child ever. The first year he should only be doing what Doug wants, point blank period. Imposing his perspective - emphasis on imposing he is not just sharing - is alienating and selfish. Then again, what would I expect from a woman who agreed to follow a parenting plan that completely cut out her husband, i.e. the man who has actually been there every day of her child's life.
It’d be one thing if his father thought that Doug didn’t get enough exercise or something. But, he doesn’t just want Doug to play a sport to be more well-rounded: he wants him to play because he can’t fathom Doug being good at something that he has no knowledge of. Instead of acknowledging he feels out of his depth he decides to bulldoze over Doug’s needs to soothe his own ego and guilt for deserting him. I despised this man. As a result, any decision that in any way catered to him put me against Doug’s mother. It felt like she threw Doug to the wolves out of a misguided belief that Doug ‘should’ know his biological father.
From where I’m standing, Doug’s father should have been proving why Doug should give him a chance at knowing him. Rather than box Doug into a problematic relationship purely on the basis of blood, his mother should have been more receptive to Doug's grievances and potentially supervised more of their interactions. Again, his stepfather was a fantastic father to Doug - something Doug directly tells his father - and he’s not blood. So why should Doug have to cater to a relationship that is so one-sided when has a man in his life who has always wanted to be his dad? Family is what you make of it. If Doug’s father isn’t going to try to understand his child as he is, not as an extension of himself, then what good is the relationship to Doug anyway? There were so many times that I did not understand why his mother was not stepping in more or defending Doug’s choices. For all intents and purposes this is a stranger.
The only reason that Gadget Con is taken away is to highlight Doug no longer caring about his goals as much as he cares about his team. Doug does his best in spite of not being able to go to Gadget Con if they win. I just think it would have been better for the narrative if Dr. Yee had decided for his own reasons that Doug was not going to Gadget Con and Doug found that out early. It achieves the same goal without the subpar parenting.
Going back again to the subpar parenting, Doug’s father is also overbearing to TW as well and that is never addressed. Doug gets his moment in the sun to stand up to his father. TW does not get the same. He wants to transfer to Doug’s school because he’s interested in their science fiction courses. Of course, he knows that Doug’s dad will never support that so he stresses himself out trying to apply alone and avoid getting essential educational help because he can’t risk him finding out what he’s trying to do. The book has this kind of last minute epilogue sequence that reveals TW got into Benjamin Banneker so we just have to assume that Doug’s conversation sparked another.
The book is multi POV to its detriment. It felt like a cheap way to sprinkle in background knowledge not an exploration of various characters' perspectives. Example, we find out Travis’ mother died of COVID in her POV chapter, but Travis never tells anyone on the page about this. It’s a way to make us as the reader sympathetic to her quirks except it does nothing for the story because, like I mentioned before, the kids are barely friends. This could have been used as a character building moment for Doug and Huey (they have family drama but at least they still have their mothers) or a friendship bonding moment for the group (thank you for sharing this personal matter with us Travis). Instead, a key factor of Travis’ backstory is treated like a preference for wheat bread over white.
I also hate when multiple point of view books don’t have a balanced distribution of chapters for each character. It makes it feel even more unnecessary. I went through, counted and divvied it up for reference:
Doug - 18 Huey - 5 TW - 4 Padgett - 3 Mrs. Jalil - 3 Travis - 2 Dr. Yee - 2 Julius - 1 The DOM - 1
It is clear from the chapter count alone that this is really Doug’s story not an ensemble. Not to mention the fact that Padgett, Mrs. Jalil, Dr. Yee, and Travis’ chapters function primarily as check-ins on things that Thomas did not seem to want to explore in the mainline of the narrative and don’t really move anything along meaningfully.
Mrs. Jalil is in charge of the community service project that the losing teams have to do when they fail out of STEAMS. We do not have to see firsthand what those kids are doing. A throwaway line by Huey informing Doug of what he’s heard would suffice. Her and Dr. Yee’s last chapters are literally email epilogues. The DOM is not even a character. She’s Dr. Yee’s best friend who agreed to be the judge. Before her POV chapter she appeared for 10 pages in Chapter 12. In those 10 pages she spoke only a handful of times to judge team names then disappeared from the book. Why does she need a chapter at all? She is a random woman at this point.
Debut novels can be very hit or miss so this is not a permanent condemnation of J.E. Thomas as a writer. This book had good bones, the execution was simply lacking. If you could not guess by my opening line: no, I would not recommend Control Freaks. ...more
A moving tale of a boy's fight for a better life than his refugee status entitles him to.
In a way it's like any other version of this story you mightA moving tale of a boy's fight for a better life than his refugee status entitles him to.
In a way it's like any other version of this story you might have heard or read, but I think this manages to stand out in how exhaustive it is. It explores the experience of living on a refugee camp from every angle.
Ostensibly, it's a graphic novel for kids, but it felt like a graphic novel memoir for adults in many ways because of the topics discussed, highlighted or implied. It is not by any means outside of its middle grade demographic in terms of appropriateness, but the amount of verbiage on each page made me wonder why this was not geared more towards young adult or adult readers.
I did not enjoy the art style at first as it was rough and unfinished looking, but it grew on me over time. I still don't think it is the best, however, it became less significant as time went on which is a plus since an art style I hate is enough to take me out of a story completely.
An easy recommend, though be mindful of your headspace when you pick it up as certain aspects are quite sad especially since Omar is a child most of the time and still a minor the rest....more
TW: attempted murder of a child (in the past), hate crime against a gay man (he is physically assaulted by a group of gang members, Vanessa witnesses)TW: attempted murder of a child (in the past), hate crime against a gay man (he is physically assaulted by a group of gang members, Vanessa witnesses), parental neglect, alcoholism treated casually, potentially fat-shaming language
I did not originally enjoy Like Vanessa all that much, but as time wore on I got more invested. Vanessa was a miserable girl at the beginning of the story which I found exhausting in spite of its realism. However, as the story continued the writing became so immersive I could not help getting sucked in. Plot wise, it is a fairly straightforward story about learning to love yourself with some of the usual growing pains thrown in for taste: growing distant from a good friend, navigating conflict, learning when to speak up, how to broach a difficult conversation, putting your trust in the right people, etc.
Something to note if you are considering picking the book up: the book takes place in 1983. We have changed a lot since the 1980s. While there are statements or commentary made by Vanessa worthy of a raised eyebrow, I don't think it is meant to be taken as abject fact so much as a reflection of what a child of the 80s or a child in general would believe. For example, Vanessa begins to lose weight for the pageant. When she does so one thing that she is delighted by is how losing the weight has given her curves that she equates to being a woman.
In a modern context we could take this negatively to mean that the author is trying to say that to be a woman is to have a certain figure i.e a skinny or hourglass-esque one. However, I think that ignores that while conversations about gender identity have always existed it would not have permeated the life of a 12 year old Black girl in public housing in Newark. Vanessa is speaking from the moment in time in which she exists. It also ignores the reality that many young women do feel more womanly by having certain body markers.
That does not inherently mean they define all femininity by those things only that their interpretation of it for themselves involves having those things. If a cisgender woman who wants children is unable to have them biologically, for example, that woman might view themself as less of a woman, but that does not necessarily mean that they think women in general who can't have children aren't 'real' women. It's complex, irrational thought process that is likely to be coming from a place of personal condemnation for not being good enough/the betrayal of their body.
Vanessa and young cisgender girls like her, are allowed to delight in these changes to their bodies. They are allowed to categorize them as womanly because in a sense they are as long as they do not define every single other woman's idea of womanhood by their definition. AMAB individuals can be happy to gain attributes that cisgender women have, like longer hair or breasts or a vagina, but not every single one is happy to do so or interested in doing so because womanhood is not purely biological. No matter which way they fall on the spectrum it isn't wrong, more a matter of preference.
I cannot say if Tami Charles was thinking about any of this as she was writing. Maybe she did mean it in a gender essentialist way. The book is semi-autobiographical so my interpretation was that she was writing from what she knew and how it was. It's just some food for thought: your mileage may vary.
I will say that it does play fast and loose with fat = unhealthy rhetoric. Focusing on nutrition was impossible because of how poor they were so exercise was the only alternative. Though, subtextually it does support that idea that Vanessa needed to be thin to be beautiful.
Vanessa's cousin is gay which ultimately results in a hate crime. I like the inclusivity of a queer character. I do not think it was necessary to include the hate crime. I think it was used as a kind of plot device to stir up drama for Vanessa rather than a meaningful attempt to communicate the reality of being gay in the 80s. If he had confided in Vanessa and they had conversations about it then I would have been more willing to accept the hate crime popping up. He is obviously not obligated to tell Vanessa anything, but that would have made the inclusion feel less utilitarian.
For all its faults - perceived or otherwise - it's a good book; one I would recommend though with reservations....more
The absolute best thing about Squad Goals is how it completely subverts all expectations regarding friendship between children.
One of the most frustrThe absolute best thing about Squad Goals is how it completely subverts all expectations regarding friendship between children.
One of the most frustrating things about middle grade is that it is often written to caution the readership to a course of action that is idealized rather than one that reflects reality. Forgiveness for misdeeds that, if a person was an adult would be perfectly acceptable to cut them off for, runs rampant. Kids should be allowed to abandon a relationship that does not serve them if it is actively not doing them any good. Being friendly is a given (depending on what the conflict is over), but you don't have to stay at the same intensity of friendship forever.
That's what Squad Goals nails so perfectly. Cappie makes big mistakes. Magic forgives her on a personal level, however, she decides to not be friends in the same way as before. The book ends without forcing a resolution where Magic has to compromise with an unreasonable party nor does she have to apologize for doing what is right for her. She mourns the relationship as anyone would do. But, she does not have to force herself into a box to sell the lie that all friendships can be salvaged or even should be.
So much middle grade seems to be written with the subconscious idea in mind that when children fight it is inherently silly and as such all their conflicts can be mended regardless of what a character has done. It is a reflection of how much children are subconsciously devalued in society.
Magic has a group of like-minded, wonderful friends who support her unconditionally. I loved the evolution of these friendships. I loved how each one had a unique relationship to Magic. I loved how Cappie was held accountable for her behavior while allowing Magic the space to choose what that looked like for her.
The romance was cute. The family dynamic was lovely. The villains got their just desserts, no half-baked redemption arc in sight. What more can you ask for?...more
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