Reviews with content warning for Racism - Different Kinds of Fruit

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Different Kinds of Fruit by Kyle Lukoff

6 reviews

katymaryreads's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Thoroughly enjoyable and informative. Maybe even too informative - although the explanations given by the non-binary character to her clueless but well-meaning friend rang true to the situation they were in. Lovable, believable, infuriating, flawed characters. A good quick read.

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thebookpaiges's review

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emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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emily_mh's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Before starting in with my review, I wanted to share my two cents regarding two common criticisms that I’ve been seeing of this book. The first is that the book is confused as to which age demographic it is targeting, as it purportedly has a juvenile MC but also deals with complex topics. However, I personally don’t think Annabelle is juvenile, she’s just acting her age which is literally 12 years old. I’m pretty sure I acted the exact same way at that time of my life. Regarding it being “too complex” for middle-graders, I’m not sure that we, as adults who were middle-graders in a very different time (e.g. for me around 2009-2011) are the best judge of what middle-graders in 2022 find complex to understand. Furthermore, the reason that queer discourse seems complex is because it isn’t educated about in schools when it really should be. It should be normal to be thinking about these topics in depth from an early age. Why are we criticising this book for a fault of society? Regardless, I thought it made queer discourse very accessible to a young audience anyway.

The second common criticism is that this book lacks direction. I wholeheartedly disagree. This is a character-driven story clearly demarcated by Annabelle coming to terms with herself, her family, and her peers, and learning about queer identity and social issues along the way.

Now onto what I want to say. This book just exudes joy and hope. It was incredible seeing such detailed queer rep in a MG book and I can see how life-changing it could be for queer kids! I LOVED reading it. I learnt so much about queer discourse that I have never been exposed to. I appreciated that the book showed in lots of cases that there’s no obvious right answers to questions of identity, that so much is still unknown or is incredibly dependent on individual circumstance, that answers can change over time. I also liked how it illustrated how what we might find acceptable now could change in the future, as has already been the case in the queer community.

Admittedly, a couple of things were a LITTLE convenient, for example

Annabelle’s relationship with Julian, Mike’s rapid character development, etc.

, but none of those things could significantly overshadow how much I loved this read.

As a side note, the audiobook was phenomenal! Cassandra Morris is definitely a favourite narrator of mine. She really brought the story to life; it was like I was reading a movie, if that makes sense.

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imstephtacular's review

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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betweentheshelves's review

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emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I mean, it's Kyle Lukoff, so you knew this was probably going to be good. My only qualm about this book is it feels very much like an issue book. Annabelle and her friends are tackling a lot of different issues in this book, and at times, it felt a bit overwhelming. I wanted it to narrow its focus to maybe just one thing. And focus a little more on the stories than tackling all of these other issues.

But, the characters are great and loveable. For the most part, Lukoff is great at nailing a middle grade voice throughout. The conversations in this book are also super important, and ones that I haven't seen in middle grade before. Especially between Annabelle and her parents. I hope people read it just for those relationships.

All in all, I do think this is an important addition to the middle grade LGBTQ+ market. And I hope we keep getting books like this!

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celine_reads_books's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.0

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