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miserablemoons's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
fast-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
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Child abuse, Racism, Sexual assault, and Suicide attempt
Minor: Alcoholism
katjoyphil's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pedophilia
ravensandlace's review
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Find this review and others like it at https://aravenclawlibraryx.wordpress.com
I have started and restarted this review at least four different times. I really struggled to put into words what this book means to me. It’s up there with Turtles All the Way Down and Under Rose Tainted Skies. This book means a lot to me and I will try my best to put into words why this book is so important to me.
Let’s start with Kiko, the main character. I identified with her so much that it felt like I was reading about me. She has anxiety and social anxiety, just like me. She struggles to form healthy relationships with her peers and that’s partially due to her mother. The way her mother treats her is abusive and it broke my heart. Because of this Kiko latches on quickly to anyone who shows her slight kindness because she doesn’t know kindness at home.
While I know kindness at home, I struggle with anxiety and making lasting friendships. I tend to only really talk to people when they first talk to me. I find it hard to keep conversation going so I often only talk to people for a few minutes because I get exhausted and just stop replying. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to people, it’s just draining for me. I only have a few friends because of this.
Like I mentioned above, Kiko’s mother is abusive and because of this, it makes the book hard to read. I truly hated her mom and the way she treated Kiko. I didn’t like that the abuse was blamed on some sort of undiagnosed mental illness. People can be monsters and not have a mental illness. I wish it would have been just that. Regardless, take caution when reading this book as the scenes of emotional abuse are constant and heartbreaking.
Overall, this book was amazing. It’s my first 5 (five) star book of 2021 and I hope that bodes well for all future books. I hope everyone takes the time to read this book because it’s message is so very important. Just make sure you are in the right headspace as this book has topics of abuse and sexual assault that are hard to read at times.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship
forlorn_traveller's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, and Suicidal thoughts
malorie's review
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This is an extremely challenging book to review for so many reasons. The subject matter is extraordinarily difficult and very much tied to the author's own experiences. I do not know how much of it is autobiographical, but on their (since deleted) Twitter account, they were pretty candid about it being to some degree informed by her own experience with an abusive parent/abusive parents.
I grew up in a home split by divorce. My father is a malignant narcissist (undiagnosed, as most malignant narcissism cases are—why go to therapy when that would damage the image you are trying to project?). My mother met a man online, dropped everything, and moved 3000 miles away, leaving me and my two siblings with our father and some pretty hefty abandonment issues. I also have diagnosed mental illnesses. Some of what is written in this book hit home in a harrowing and unexpected way; other parts left me slack-jawed at the insensitivity (that very well may have been unintentional) in the writing.
Every abused child will have very different experiences of their abusive parent. Some kids hold onto memories as though it is the only way to prove what is happening to them against the gaslighting. Some kids lose their memories almost as soon as the present moment fades even if they try and try and try to remember. Regardless, I think remembering what happens to you feels VITAL to all of us. So, criticizing the mother's portrayal in this book feels to me like I am attacking a survival memory of the author. I do not want to say, "Oh, your experiences do not reflect my own, and so I am challenging the authenticity of your very personal, lived experiences." And it sort of feels like any criticism that I have runs the risk of sounding just that way.
Fundamentally, I think there was a problem with the portrayal of Angie. I am guessing it is to preserve the feeling that this is from Kiko's perspective, and she quite literally has no context for what is happening to her. However, the narrative has a bit more responsibility than that, especially when dealing with these sensitive issues. The text never got to the point of explaining or understanding healthy boundaries. I feel like I wasn't shown a complete picture of Angie and the constant "reeling-in" in abusive parental situations. The moments where Kiko would claim that she keeps falling for her mother's faux-interest (which just gives her mother ammunition) rings so true, but I don't feel that we are ever really shown that cycle. Angie is always just cruel.
In a previous version of this text (I have seen that it was updated, but the reference tweets have all been deleted when the author deleted her account), I think there was a more problematic portrayal of mental illness. I cannot speak to that. However, I still felt uncomfortable with how mental illness was portrayed in this version, mainly each of the characters' understanding of Kiko's anxiety. This does also come up in discussions of Angie's behavior that is pretty much dismissed in one interaction about bipolar disorder: Jamie asserts that maybe Angie has bipolar. Kiko refutes that because mental illness is not an excuse for behavior like her mother's.
Now, I have a big problem with the framing of bipolar as it comes from Jamie and the unchecked assumption of what types of behavior constitute "mental illness" vs. "abuse." And even though Kiko's reply is on the right track, it is almost as if she just shrugs it off, and then it is not addressed again. This is so tricky. This is a story that is absolutely about Kiko and not her mother. This is an essential theme throughout the book and an important (and probably complicated) thing to balance in the writing. It is difficult not to let a narcissist take over the entire story, even when that narcissist is a fictional representation! But, I do think that this is inadvertently harmful. As a person with a bipolar disorder diagnosis, often the portrayal of people who struggle with this diagnosis, particularly women and ESPECIALLY mothers, is so painful for me.
This also leads me to the sort of sub-plot of sexual abuse that runs in the background. I honestly just don't know what to do with it because it is a huge focal point for Kiko, but it never felt integrated into the plot as a whole. The sexual assault that happened with Adam early in the story paints an important image that non-consent definitely can look like freezing up and being unable to fight against a person or say no explicitly. But as a story element, I was confused at how the broader meaning behind these plot points integrates for Kiko. I honestly don't feel like this element was interrogated, and would even lead to unexamined internal moments for Kiko. This is exemplified by her internal insistence that telling her father would be an undue burden that would ruin his new life, and even in deciding to tell him everything, that feeling was not examined.
Beyond this, a romance-centered plot was never going to be my favorite. Despite all of my problems with the romance being a catalyst for "wellness" trope, I do think that Bowman tried to subvert how it is usually done—giving Kiko the space to try to figure herself out. It is implied that she takes the space that she needs to find a firmer footing in her own personhood, and that is an important thing, I think.
As much as I would like for narratives centered on navigating abuse to be rid of the romance plot element entirely, I also remember what it was like to be 18 and shattering in 5 billion directions when going no-contact with my dad and struggling against crippling anxiety. I remember that my relationship became the focal point of my existence and that the love I had for my first boyfriend was a way for me to replace everything in myself—because everything inside of me was too terrible to confront. And I just remember simply being 18! Feelings are SO POWERFUL as a teenager. It is amazing any of us survived them! It is impossible not to also feel all of the usual things that a teenager would feel when confronted with the person central to their burgeoning desire.
So, while I particularly dislike that trope, I think that Bowman did a good job handling it. I think it will be necessary for kids to see how you can fall in love and also not let it take you over completely. I think that might be especially important for other biracial kids because Kiko's experience is so informed by her own experience as a biracial kid.
I waited until the end of my review to touch on race because it is the area that I cannot speak to from my own experience. The author has talked about the fact that this book is not for people like me—white abuse survivors—and I definitely see that. There is a substantial racial element in this story that is central to Kiko and integral to all of the events that occur. All of the experiences that I discuss above are dramatically worsened when racism is taken into consideration. Kiko's entire identity is under attack, including the primary identity of her racial makeup. She is also trying to figure out her place in a very liminal space of being biracial with a feeling of disconnectedness from culture and family. Angie is also clearly racist toward her children, and I can't even imagine how harmful and hurtful that would be.
So there is an element to this story that I cannot engage with on as personal a level as I did many others. And that is okay, and I am grateful that it did give me a lot to think about beyond something so personal to me. Because, if I am being honest, this book is not for me or about me, and it is hard to separate that out when the content hits so close to an extremely painful core. Overall, I understand why many people love this book, and I also understand why some hated it. I think it is a book that is what it set out to be. It gave me a lot to think about, and ultimately delivered an authentic voice in the YA genre.
I grew up in a home split by divorce. My father is a malignant narcissist (undiagnosed, as most malignant narcissism cases are—why go to therapy when that would damage the image you are trying to project?). My mother met a man online, dropped everything, and moved 3000 miles away, leaving me and my two siblings with our father and some pretty hefty abandonment issues. I also have diagnosed mental illnesses. Some of what is written in this book hit home in a harrowing and unexpected way; other parts left me slack-jawed at the insensitivity (that very well may have been unintentional) in the writing.
Every abused child will have very different experiences of their abusive parent. Some kids hold onto memories as though it is the only way to prove what is happening to them against the gaslighting. Some kids lose their memories almost as soon as the present moment fades even if they try and try and try to remember. Regardless, I think remembering what happens to you feels VITAL to all of us. So, criticizing the mother's portrayal in this book feels to me like I am attacking a survival memory of the author. I do not want to say, "Oh, your experiences do not reflect my own, and so I am challenging the authenticity of your very personal, lived experiences." And it sort of feels like any criticism that I have runs the risk of sounding just that way.
Fundamentally, I think there was a problem with the portrayal of Angie. I am guessing it is to preserve the feeling that this is from Kiko's perspective, and she quite literally has no context for what is happening to her. However, the narrative has a bit more responsibility than that, especially when dealing with these sensitive issues. The text never got to the point of explaining or understanding healthy boundaries. I feel like I wasn't shown a complete picture of Angie and the constant "reeling-in" in abusive parental situations. The moments where Kiko would claim that she keeps falling for her mother's faux-interest (which just gives her mother ammunition) rings so true, but I don't feel that we are ever really shown that cycle. Angie is always just cruel.
In a previous version of this text (I have seen that it was updated, but the reference tweets have all been deleted when the author deleted her account), I think there was a more problematic portrayal of mental illness. I cannot speak to that. However, I still felt uncomfortable with how mental illness was portrayed in this version, mainly each of the characters' understanding of Kiko's anxiety. This does also come up in discussions of Angie's behavior that is pretty much dismissed in one interaction about bipolar disorder: Jamie asserts that maybe Angie has bipolar. Kiko refutes that because mental illness is not an excuse for behavior like her mother's.
Now, I have a big problem with the framing of bipolar as it comes from Jamie and the unchecked assumption of what types of behavior constitute "mental illness" vs. "abuse." And even though Kiko's reply is on the right track, it is almost as if she just shrugs it off, and then it is not addressed again. This is so tricky. This is a story that is absolutely about Kiko and not her mother. This is an essential theme throughout the book and an important (and probably complicated) thing to balance in the writing. It is difficult not to let a narcissist take over the entire story, even when that narcissist is a fictional representation! But, I do think that this is inadvertently harmful. As a person with a bipolar disorder diagnosis, often the portrayal of people who struggle with this diagnosis, particularly women and ESPECIALLY mothers, is so painful for me.
This also leads me to the sort of sub-plot of sexual abuse that runs in the background. I honestly just don't know what to do with it because it is a huge focal point for Kiko, but it never felt integrated into the plot as a whole. The sexual assault that happened with Adam early in the story paints an important image that non-consent definitely can look like freezing up and being unable to fight against a person or say no explicitly. But as a story element, I was confused at how the broader meaning behind these plot points integrates for Kiko. I honestly don't feel like this element was interrogated, and would even lead to unexamined internal moments for Kiko. This is exemplified by her internal insistence that telling her father would be an undue burden that would ruin his new life, and even in deciding to tell him everything, that feeling was not examined.
Beyond this, a romance-centered plot was never going to be my favorite. Despite all of my problems with the romance being a catalyst for "wellness" trope, I do think that Bowman tried to subvert how it is usually done—giving Kiko the space to try to figure herself out. It is implied that she takes the space that she needs to find a firmer footing in her own personhood, and that is an important thing, I think.
As much as I would like for narratives centered on navigating abuse to be rid of the romance plot element entirely, I also remember what it was like to be 18 and shattering in 5 billion directions when going no-contact with my dad and struggling against crippling anxiety. I remember that my relationship became the focal point of my existence and that the love I had for my first boyfriend was a way for me to replace everything in myself—because everything inside of me was too terrible to confront. And I just remember simply being 18! Feelings are SO POWERFUL as a teenager. It is amazing any of us survived them! It is impossible not to also feel all of the usual things that a teenager would feel when confronted with the person central to their burgeoning desire.
So, while I particularly dislike that trope, I think that Bowman did a good job handling it. I think it will be necessary for kids to see how you can fall in love and also not let it take you over completely. I think that might be especially important for other biracial kids because Kiko's experience is so informed by her own experience as a biracial kid.
I waited until the end of my review to touch on race because it is the area that I cannot speak to from my own experience. The author has talked about the fact that this book is not for people like me—white abuse survivors—and I definitely see that. There is a substantial racial element in this story that is central to Kiko and integral to all of the events that occur. All of the experiences that I discuss above are dramatically worsened when racism is taken into consideration. Kiko's entire identity is under attack, including the primary identity of her racial makeup. She is also trying to figure out her place in a very liminal space of being biracial with a feeling of disconnectedness from culture and family. Angie is also clearly racist toward her children, and I can't even imagine how harmful and hurtful that would be.
So there is an element to this story that I cannot engage with on as personal a level as I did many others. And that is okay, and I am grateful that it did give me a lot to think about beyond something so personal to me. Because, if I am being honest, this book is not for me or about me, and it is hard to separate that out when the content hits so close to an extremely painful core. Overall, I understand why many people love this book, and I also understand why some hated it. I think it is a book that is what it set out to be. It gave me a lot to think about, and ultimately delivered an authentic voice in the YA genre.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse and Sexual assault
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