Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Mosquitoland

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

lasbrumas's review

adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Lately I've been trying to pick books based on their synopsis, personal recommendations from friends and family, and nothing else. Mosquitoland was one of those books. I picked up at my local library after seeing the cover and deciding the synopsis sounded interesting. It reminded me a lot of a childhood favorite, Walk Two Moons, at least on the surface. Unfortunately, Mosquitoland is far from anything like Walk Two Moons.

Before I began reading this, I avoided looking up reviews, reading comments here, checking the rating, and anything else that might influence my experience. I really wanted to go into this with no expectations. Boy, do I wish I hadn't.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

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TW: fatphobia, transphobia, racism, suicide mention, s*xual assault, ableism

Where to begin? First, it was hard to like this book's protagonist. Mim is a 16 year old girl, so naturally I expected some snark and reckless behavior. What I actually got was occasional snark, cruelty masked as snark, and a passive protagonist whose character arc felt unearned and sudden. To be clear, I believe that what a character says does not reflect on the author, but I do have to wonder why Arnold decided to make Mim so judgemental. There seems to be no reason for this other than playing into the stereotype of a teenager.

The more minor of these infractions is her categorization of people into name groups. Carls act this way. Claires act another. It was supposed to be "quirky" but the effort fell flat, especially when paired with the rest of her comments. Mim makes a bunch of off-color comments, including:

- several comments about people's weight. She compares Ahab's boyfriend to a whale! And sure maybe Arnold was going for the whole Moby Dick thing, but did she have to mention an exact weight and call it disgusting? Not to mention she imagines what would happen if he were stabbed, and goes in-depth into a graphic description of all the fluids that would leak out. And Ahab's boyfriend isn't the only one she describes as overweight and disgusting. I thought we left the fat-shaming in the 2000s!

- she makes another comment about a "he-she cowboy (cowgirl)" which... just no

- calls a Hispanic mother and daughter "beautiful" (haha exotic, am I right? *eyeroll*)

- refers to Walt, a disabled homeless boy whom she befriends, a pet

- calls a boy who may have schizophrenia (as Mim calls it) evil

And many more! Now, if her backstory, the worldbuilding (because yes, even contemporary pieces need to work to build the real world around them), or anything else showed where she had learned this and how she unlearns her judgements or, as she sees more of the world, realizes she's wrong, it would be fine. But by the conclusion, she says she's learned not to judge people even though she continues judging right until the very end! Ugh.

Also, going back to her comments. Besides the obvious fatphobia, the depiction of disability and mental illness is atrocious. Firstly, there is Walt, who is portrayed as very childlike, innocent, naive, and honestly only interacts or says something when it's convenient to the plot. Otherwise, he really is treated as a "pet", with Mim commenting about how she has to protect him, care for him, and also how many times she forgets he's even there. I'm not part of the community, but I know plenty of folks who are and who have talked about similar depictions as insulting. Then there's Caleb, who, it's revealed, talks to himself in a "Gollum-Gollum" (Mim's words) way. I do not know much about schizophrenia, but the fact it's portrayed as evil and a problem. Because yeah, Mim's aunt had it and Mim might have it, but we're not sure (more on that later). Anyway Caleb gets arrested and Mim is fine with it. Because he's a "bad" person with mental illness. Those ones deserve to go to jail.

And then there's her mother. We know she's sick, but we never actually find out what is wrong with Mim's mom. She is in a rehab for substance abuse and depression, but her symptoms are nonspecific and vague. Her Aunt Isabel, who we learn died of suicide, had psychosis of some sort I guess, but again, very nonspecific symptoms. And Mim? Well her father suspects she might also be schizophrenic, but at the end we're left wondering if maybe she isn't and her father has been pushing pills for no reason. Because again, she doesn't have any symptoms that are specific enough to pin as any diagnosis! It's all vague maybes. Also yes, pills are shown as negative and with how mental illness was treated here, it just feels on purpose.

Anyway... rant over. Maybe.

Other reviews have also mentioned that Mim (and Mosquitoland in general) seem like a discount John Green, and I have to agree. She waxes philosophically, often to the point of confusing me, but it has no depth. She's got quips and odd metaphors. The whole bit. At one point,

Mim survives a bus accident

, but instead of clearly understanding what happened, it took an entire page to for the reveal.

Everything that happened in the plot felt like it was happening to Mim. The crash, the assault (which literally served no point other than... idk drama?), Arlene's death, finding Walt. It just felt like a series of events loosely connected together. The box, which I thought would be so important, is just... a minor sideplot. And we barely spent any time with Arlene to justify Mim's decision to complete her journey or even feel bad about her death.

Arnold had all the makings of a great road trip, but ultimately it fell flat. I really wanted to like this, but it just felt like everything went on without consequence. Mim's comments, her actions (when she took any), and the events of the story all failed to come together. Arnold would have been much better focusing on making Mim earn her character arc and maybe dealing with the death of her aunt and how it relates to the other upheavals in her life. That's what I was hoping to see, anyway, but alas. I cannot say I will recommend this to anyone.

Content Warnings

guinness74's review

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adventurous emotional funny reflective sad 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? Yes

4.25

However unlikely the scenario, it’s not entirely implausible that Mim carried out this epic trek over a Labor Day weekend. I mean, we’ve heard of runaways taking on cross-country excursions for lesser reasons, e.g. joy rides. Still, the sheer number of encounters that should have stopped her cold make this a little fantastical. But what a ride! In so many expressions of the word, too. I wish we’d seen more of certain characters and less of others, but then, that seems to be real life experience as well. It was definitely a quality escape from current reading material.

Content Warnings