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mariahistryingtoread's review against another edition
1.0
I have been putting this review off for a decade and a half because I grew exhausted just thinking about gathering my thoughts together for this book. When I say it was terrible that is an understatement. Tristan Strong Keeps Punching is one of the worst middle grade books I’ve ever read. It took me months to get through. I wrote eight pages of notes. Worse than that I went into it knowing for a fact it wouldn’t be good because of how middling I found the previous two books.
The first thing I noted was that like I assumed would happen, all of Tristan’s grandmothers’ adventures in Alke were completely ignored. This takes place a few weeks after the events of the last book and all we get is a single flashback Tristan has to when they talked about it right after he saved her in which we learn nothing of consequence. Seeing as this is the final book (at least at the moment of this review) it makes no sense that what is presented as a life changing revelation in the past book never comes up in a meaningful way. Why introduce it when you won’t be doing anything with it? It adds to the overall feeling that this series is a bunch of independent ideas that a group of editors agreed upon - more on that a bit later as arguably that’s exactly what this is.
Case in point, a non-binary character named Memphis is introduced in this book for absolutely no reason. Not that you need a reason per se to include queer characters and to be fair, the lack of development is common for all characters in this series, but the fact that there was absolutely nothing queer at all in the last two books made the jump to including Memphis feel disingenuous. In terms of queer representation, Thandiwe discovering she’s nonbinary would have made more sense to me - she is an established character lacking in many traits already so this would have killed two birds with one stone. Especially since like I noted before Memphis is barely a character. Memphis appears eleven pages in the first quarter of a book that is over 400 pages and does nothing that could not have been shifted to a different character. Again, this isn’t about queerness needing a justification so much as the utility in the story being so lacking.
Sometimes inclusion is as simple as saying a character is black, queer, disabled, etc. Proof isn’t exactly required. What makes a character a good depiction of marginalization can be difficult to quantify. That being said, the reason this stands out to me as thrown in just for the sake of it is because that’s the tone for the entire series.
I’m particularly skeptical of intention considering this series is commissioned by Cake Literary (this review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3172554505 sums up the situation nicely) and not Kwame Mbalia’s idea. As I alluded to earlier, this series is a hodge podge of ‘hello fellow kids’ nuts and bolts from other better books gathered together by a bunch of people who regardless of their (supposedly) noble goals of spreading diversity are going to be concerned with the bottom line. That’s not to say that any diverse idea greenlit by a big box company is primarily or only money hungry. I love that diversity is being pushed in many different ways. I love that we’re trying to expand past the white, eurocentric narrative prevalent in a majority of the media in the United States. But, it’d be naive to think that how much money can be made does not also enter into the equation.
Companies know that looking like they care is more important than actually caring. People are so starved for representation, they’ll swallow a lot of flaws. Couple that with how pervasive virtue signaling has become and you’ve got a foolproof way to release a product, seem progressive and not have to even fight your own battles regarding criticism because the desperate masses will do it for you.
I’m getting more into general critique of modern children’s media rather than Tristan Strong, so getting back to the topic at hand: my point here is not that a book can’t flourish in spite of these circumstances. My point is that Tristan Strong is not a series that does and it shows.
I wouldn’t care about Memphis being included in a different book because the author being the arbiter (as far as I know, I’m aware that the majority of the time I will never know for certain how responsible an author is for all aspects of their work and will be operating under an assumption) of the work means I will naturally presume they wanted to include the marginalization due to an interest or belief in its significance or its bearing on the plot. When you incorporate a corporate interest is when I begin to doubt authenticity. And Tristan Strong has not one thing executed well enough to make me give it the benefit of the doubt.
The series has no definitive, stand-out villains and heroes. This is a series predicated on the idea of Black peoples’ stories, history, and culture being bombastic, vibrant, and worthy of attention. Yet, Tristan Strong always chooses the most boring, heavy handed way possible to communicate its subject matter at every turn.
The Gods feel like stand-ins for parents, to their detriment especially since Tristan has Grandparents’ who could easily fill the role. Their names and their powers are given, but they aren’t actually characters to root for. They are a presence to outwit. If the point is to revel in these characters in a way that has been denied to us for so long it was a poor choice to make them definitively, uncharitably this ever serious, oppressive barrier to Tristan doing what would be considered the ‘fun’ parts of the book. The weight of what this person represents as a concept in real life always took precedence over making them funny or interesting. They are written to appeal to the adults in charge of reading lists rather than for the kids directly.
The villains are typically random amalgamations of objects or concepts used for Black subjugation which makes them exceedingly difficult to keep track of when attacking or remember in general. I would have killed for a simple dog beast to start roaming around instead of things like the personification of a jail imbued with racist energy. If this was an adult satire, I’d get it. For a kids adventure book? I cannot see any child finding that compelling when it’s too ill-defined to actually envision. When Percy Jackson battles Medusa, he’s literally battling a snake lady. There is more lore to it obviously, but snake lady is not that hard to imagine on its face.
Not to mention the haphazard criss-crossing of African American versus African mythos and heritage means the world is underdeveloped and vaguely discordant. The complexity of the Black diaspora is nowhere in sight. It’s a grab bag of disparate cultural mixings added purely for name recognition. This book absolutely treats Blackness as if it’s monolithic which is a direct result of how shallow the worldbuilding is.
Personally I think the universe is threadbare on purpose to distract from how dissonant many plot elements are.
Gum Baby is rescued early in the book. She quite literally blips out of existence on page 65 only to reappear on page 111 as if nothing happened. There was no reason she’d leave the room Tristan and her were in. It’s well known when the two are together she basically sticks to him like glue for one thing. For another, the two just got back into contact. Why would she leave him? More than that, if she were going to leave it would not be quietly so you can’t even say that maybe Tristan didn’t hear her go. There’s a splash as if she might have jumped in the water, but why would she do that? Her favorite pastime is picking on Tristan and he’s sitting in his room sulking; a prime opportunity for mischief.
Tristan is surprised that the secondary antagonist Patty Roller is a haint when he falls into a trap she laid to capture him when he tries to ‘save’ her. He has to check his adinkra bracelet to know for certain. Why wouldn’t he automatically assume it was a haint? Why would some random lady be trying to trap him? How would a random lady know his name?
King Cotton was in a bottle that Tristan accidentally broke in book 1 and he escaped, but how is this haint up and about exactly? Did King Cotton release her? Do haints naturally haunt our world and we just can't see them? Is this simply Alkean spill over? How is she able to trap 'real', corporeal kids? Spirit kids is one thing, kids in Alke is one thing, but how is she capturing kids that originate in the real world? I have ideas, but it shouldn’t be me guessing: it should be a conclusion drawn, fully supported by a coherent, logical narrative.
Speaking of Alkean spillover, the Alke displacement is meaningless. Take Ayanna for instance, she has been out virtually alone in a totally unfamiliar world and she doesn’t speak once about how difficult that was or how she got by. She had no money. She had no proof of existence by way of a birth certificate or social security card. They didn’t have smartphones or Internet (as far as I can tell) in Alke. She can’t get a job in most places because she’s too young. Slang, social cues, and general everyday life those of us in America take for granted will be utterly foreign to her. How did she navigate such a strange, new environment? It’s anyones’ guess.
This series is built on the Black diaspora and is using it as a backdrop for its plot but takes no pains to actively explore how that kind of displacement affects the people it purports to care about.
At one point, Gum Baby reveals she has a credit card. Obviously, I know this is supposed to be a joke, but it’s just too egregious for me to ignore. How did she get one? You need a bank account, an ID, a home address, a social security card - to name a few things - and of course, she won’t have any of those things. She can't just walk into a bank to set one up. These questions are clearly meant to be part of the gag except that doesn't work when the basis of the world is so flimsy already. This only adds to the laziness of the construction of the universe: a cheap gag is more important than maintaining immersion.
Not to mention all of those questions go double for the Alkeans that are literal talking animals or creatures. How did Brer Rabbit - a talking bunny - live life out and about without causing some kind of panic? There is some magic afoot that shields the coffles kidnapping kids from being photographed or caught on video, however, it is established that regardless of that some people are still able to see them. So even if they aren’t immediately visible how is it that rumors didn’t start spreading at the very least? Tristan didn’t see weird mentions online or hear of odd happenings second hand? And again, if it is true that the magic is a kind of defense then that needs to be stated in the book not me making an assumption on its behalf.
Tristan actively puts everyone at risk before choosing to set sail for Angola for his own self interest even though he'd been warned off yet he feels no guilt for this decision when it almost destroys Mami Wata’s ship since it was a trap. No one brings up the misstep or shames him either. What was the point in making it a trap in the first place if there was no fallout?
Right before the halfway point, Anansi is ticked enough at Tristan’s failure that he actually gets Tristan’s Anansesem duties suspended pending further review by the Gods. He’s desperate to find Junior and mad because Tristan wants to go after Cotton before rescuing the Alkeans only for Tristan's plan literally 3 pages later to be…. rescue the Alkeans before going after Cotton. What was the point in this fight or escalating so far only for Tristan to change his mind immediately? There were other, far better ways to separate Tristan from the SBP.
High John starts to consume his stories assuming that it would make him stronger because he was using the power behind the stories to bolster him, however, this actually makes him weaker because the strength comes from the belief in the stories ie people trading them, sharing them, etc rather than the existence of the story alone. He becomes so weak he eventually dies as the stories no longer are out there being told. Except this flat out doesn’t make any sense.
1, the US isn't the entire world. 2, there are people who study folklore 3, Tristan's family aren't the only people who would trade the stories amongst each other as a community venture. So shouldn't he literally be incapable of dying? Like he's built on stories? How does that die? Especially when he apparently is the amalgamation of every 'John' story that's out there. There are an infinite amount of tales surrounding this figure. Somebody somewhere is believing and as long as they do then shouldn’t he always be able to live? Plus, the crux of the story is that King Cotton is harnessing story energy for nefarious purposes. Why does he get stronger, but High John instead dies?
(Also, I feel a little like a God would know this already and like not do that because the entire series is predicated on the idea that stories need to be told to people but I digress.)
New Orleans has a lot of storied history when it comes to Black people. None of the history, namely the racism that went into the literal construction of the city, is ever discussed. Hurricane Katrina and the fallout of that, for example, is never mentioned. Homelessness is supposed to be a major plot thread. Post-Katrina homelessness swelled to practically 4x its rate before. Why not connect the two or establish a trend?
It’s further evidence of how vaguely the book is written. It gives the impression that Mbalia was purposely avoiding writing anything that would require additional research or looking back at the previous books.
If homelessness and the fact that Black kids/people who are homeless are more likely to be homeless and be ignored for being homeless is so important then why wasn’t Memphis made into a main character? They could have given actual insight into the epidemic. Instead we got new kids popping up at irregular intervals to be grateful to Tristan for noticing them or saying loaded comments like 'oh it's real rough out here' with no explanation as to what exactly is so rough. It attempts to get points for 'saying something' sans real effort.
I do not doubt that it is awful to live out on the streets or to not have a stable place to stay every night. However, the whole point in adding a social issue into a book is to fully explore the concept. You don’t know what a reader already knows coming into a story - if you choose to add a social issue you should feel obligated to do some legwork.
Also, this book conflates homelessness with foster care. Foster care kids do not strictly have homes in the family sense - a home is wherever I’m with you etc - and it can be unstable, but it’s not the same as being literally homeless. There is still a sense of structure. Obviously, the foster care system is imperfect. Kids do end up abused in the system or lacking in basic rights. That being said, while that may mean that kids in both situations may have similar feelings about their experiences, it does not make the two situations the same. They have individual hardships that should be addressed as such.
Granny Z - a magical woman who gains power from her belief in the goddess Erzulie but is not an Alkean transplant - runs a skate park that Thandiwe was kicking it at with High John. She is presented as providing a haven for at-risk kids except what she’s doing is a childs’ idea of helping. She knowingly allows kids who are runaways and orphans stay at the skate park. Is she not at all concerned about the liability of dozens of kids she barely knows being in her place of business at all hours? Where do these kids sleep? Social media culture makes it even more ludicrous; I don’t buy that a set-up of this scale would stay a secret.
Thandiwe and High John were apparently arranging permanent living arrangements, but that only raises more questions: how the heck are they doing that when their idea of this world is literally only like 3 weeks old? There are people who struggle in America after emigrating years ago. Yet, I’m supposed to believe after a few weeks Thandiwe and High John have it down enough to engage with social services, lawyers, landlords, and who knows who else to make this work?
Like I called back in Book 1, Ayanna and Tristan now have mutual feelings for one another. We still know nothing about Ayanna and their crushes sprung up out of nowhere. While I knew this was coming, there was literally no evidence to suggest it in-text. The two were purely platonic in every way up until now. Any allusions to the contrary were sparse and arguably ill-founded: I’m simply highly attuned to romantic underpinnings.
Patty Rollers has these minions - Redliners - who pop-up throughout the city. The two we meet are two normal racist white people contradicting the internal logic the book has been running on that only Alkeans or those naturally touched by a bit of Alke can see magic. All of those people are established to be Black. White people are not suggested to be blessed in this manner. Is Patty Roller simply that strong? Did she gift them powers to see her? Your guess is as good as mine.
They act like goofy 80s cartoon characters thereby undermining the very real harm such behavior causes. They mindlessly parrot racist rhetoric that has no teeth because it’s all generic, arbitrary statements. There is no reason for this to even be a plot point. They have no impact on larger plot beats. This is subjective, but they’re not funny. And I cannot stress enough how bad it is to sell kids on blatantly racist actions disguised as innocuous fights for ‘civil liberties’ as a joke when it’s one of the most insidious forms of racism there is.
Tristan’s arc follows the same path as his arcs always do: introduce at the start, drop it 25% or so in, don’t mention it again until it’s time to finish the book out. His anger momentarily causes him strife, but it doesn’t impede him further after the first time it’s a problem. Trust me, there were plenty of opportunities for it to sabotage him that would have tied the whole thread together.
TSKP is the culmination of every issue I’ve had with this series with a few others tacked on for fun. I cannot /not/ recommend this enough. A kid probably will be fine, but there are other better series out there. I am utterly disappointed by how much potential this series wasted. I could write more (I did write more, editing down is a beast) but I'll leave it here now for my own sanity.
The first thing I noted was that like I assumed would happen, all of Tristan’s grandmothers’ adventures in Alke were completely ignored. This takes place a few weeks after the events of the last book and all we get is a single flashback Tristan has to when they talked about it right after he saved her in which we learn nothing of consequence. Seeing as this is the final book (at least at the moment of this review) it makes no sense that what is presented as a life changing revelation in the past book never comes up in a meaningful way. Why introduce it when you won’t be doing anything with it? It adds to the overall feeling that this series is a bunch of independent ideas that a group of editors agreed upon - more on that a bit later as arguably that’s exactly what this is.
Case in point, a non-binary character named Memphis is introduced in this book for absolutely no reason. Not that you need a reason per se to include queer characters and to be fair, the lack of development is common for all characters in this series, but the fact that there was absolutely nothing queer at all in the last two books made the jump to including Memphis feel disingenuous. In terms of queer representation, Thandiwe discovering she’s nonbinary would have made more sense to me - she is an established character lacking in many traits already so this would have killed two birds with one stone. Especially since like I noted before Memphis is barely a character. Memphis appears eleven pages in the first quarter of a book that is over 400 pages and does nothing that could not have been shifted to a different character. Again, this isn’t about queerness needing a justification so much as the utility in the story being so lacking.
Sometimes inclusion is as simple as saying a character is black, queer, disabled, etc. Proof isn’t exactly required. What makes a character a good depiction of marginalization can be difficult to quantify. That being said, the reason this stands out to me as thrown in just for the sake of it is because that’s the tone for the entire series.
I’m particularly skeptical of intention considering this series is commissioned by Cake Literary (this review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3172554505 sums up the situation nicely) and not Kwame Mbalia’s idea. As I alluded to earlier, this series is a hodge podge of ‘hello fellow kids’ nuts and bolts from other better books gathered together by a bunch of people who regardless of their (supposedly) noble goals of spreading diversity are going to be concerned with the bottom line. That’s not to say that any diverse idea greenlit by a big box company is primarily or only money hungry. I love that diversity is being pushed in many different ways. I love that we’re trying to expand past the white, eurocentric narrative prevalent in a majority of the media in the United States. But, it’d be naive to think that how much money can be made does not also enter into the equation.
Companies know that looking like they care is more important than actually caring. People are so starved for representation, they’ll swallow a lot of flaws. Couple that with how pervasive virtue signaling has become and you’ve got a foolproof way to release a product, seem progressive and not have to even fight your own battles regarding criticism because the desperate masses will do it for you.
I’m getting more into general critique of modern children’s media rather than Tristan Strong, so getting back to the topic at hand: my point here is not that a book can’t flourish in spite of these circumstances. My point is that Tristan Strong is not a series that does and it shows.
I wouldn’t care about Memphis being included in a different book because the author being the arbiter (as far as I know, I’m aware that the majority of the time I will never know for certain how responsible an author is for all aspects of their work and will be operating under an assumption) of the work means I will naturally presume they wanted to include the marginalization due to an interest or belief in its significance or its bearing on the plot. When you incorporate a corporate interest is when I begin to doubt authenticity. And Tristan Strong has not one thing executed well enough to make me give it the benefit of the doubt.
The series has no definitive, stand-out villains and heroes. This is a series predicated on the idea of Black peoples’ stories, history, and culture being bombastic, vibrant, and worthy of attention. Yet, Tristan Strong always chooses the most boring, heavy handed way possible to communicate its subject matter at every turn.
The Gods feel like stand-ins for parents, to their detriment especially since Tristan has Grandparents’ who could easily fill the role. Their names and their powers are given, but they aren’t actually characters to root for. They are a presence to outwit. If the point is to revel in these characters in a way that has been denied to us for so long it was a poor choice to make them definitively, uncharitably this ever serious, oppressive barrier to Tristan doing what would be considered the ‘fun’ parts of the book. The weight of what this person represents as a concept in real life always took precedence over making them funny or interesting. They are written to appeal to the adults in charge of reading lists rather than for the kids directly.
The villains are typically random amalgamations of objects or concepts used for Black subjugation which makes them exceedingly difficult to keep track of when attacking or remember in general. I would have killed for a simple dog beast to start roaming around instead of things like the personification of a jail imbued with racist energy. If this was an adult satire, I’d get it. For a kids adventure book? I cannot see any child finding that compelling when it’s too ill-defined to actually envision. When Percy Jackson battles Medusa, he’s literally battling a snake lady. There is more lore to it obviously, but snake lady is not that hard to imagine on its face.
Not to mention the haphazard criss-crossing of African American versus African mythos and heritage means the world is underdeveloped and vaguely discordant. The complexity of the Black diaspora is nowhere in sight. It’s a grab bag of disparate cultural mixings added purely for name recognition. This book absolutely treats Blackness as if it’s monolithic which is a direct result of how shallow the worldbuilding is.
Personally I think the universe is threadbare on purpose to distract from how dissonant many plot elements are.
Gum Baby is rescued early in the book. She quite literally blips out of existence on page 65 only to reappear on page 111 as if nothing happened. There was no reason she’d leave the room Tristan and her were in. It’s well known when the two are together she basically sticks to him like glue for one thing. For another, the two just got back into contact. Why would she leave him? More than that, if she were going to leave it would not be quietly so you can’t even say that maybe Tristan didn’t hear her go. There’s a splash as if she might have jumped in the water, but why would she do that? Her favorite pastime is picking on Tristan and he’s sitting in his room sulking; a prime opportunity for mischief.
Tristan is surprised that the secondary antagonist Patty Roller is a haint when he falls into a trap she laid to capture him when he tries to ‘save’ her. He has to check his adinkra bracelet to know for certain. Why wouldn’t he automatically assume it was a haint? Why would some random lady be trying to trap him? How would a random lady know his name?
King Cotton was in a bottle that Tristan accidentally broke in book 1 and he escaped, but how is this haint up and about exactly? Did King Cotton release her? Do haints naturally haunt our world and we just can't see them? Is this simply Alkean spill over? How is she able to trap 'real', corporeal kids? Spirit kids is one thing, kids in Alke is one thing, but how is she capturing kids that originate in the real world? I have ideas, but it shouldn’t be me guessing: it should be a conclusion drawn, fully supported by a coherent, logical narrative.
Speaking of Alkean spillover, the Alke displacement is meaningless. Take Ayanna for instance, she has been out virtually alone in a totally unfamiliar world and she doesn’t speak once about how difficult that was or how she got by. She had no money. She had no proof of existence by way of a birth certificate or social security card. They didn’t have smartphones or Internet (as far as I can tell) in Alke. She can’t get a job in most places because she’s too young. Slang, social cues, and general everyday life those of us in America take for granted will be utterly foreign to her. How did she navigate such a strange, new environment? It’s anyones’ guess.
This series is built on the Black diaspora and is using it as a backdrop for its plot but takes no pains to actively explore how that kind of displacement affects the people it purports to care about.
At one point, Gum Baby reveals she has a credit card. Obviously, I know this is supposed to be a joke, but it’s just too egregious for me to ignore. How did she get one? You need a bank account, an ID, a home address, a social security card - to name a few things - and of course, she won’t have any of those things. She can't just walk into a bank to set one up. These questions are clearly meant to be part of the gag except that doesn't work when the basis of the world is so flimsy already. This only adds to the laziness of the construction of the universe: a cheap gag is more important than maintaining immersion.
Not to mention all of those questions go double for the Alkeans that are literal talking animals or creatures. How did Brer Rabbit - a talking bunny - live life out and about without causing some kind of panic? There is some magic afoot that shields the coffles kidnapping kids from being photographed or caught on video, however, it is established that regardless of that some people are still able to see them. So even if they aren’t immediately visible how is it that rumors didn’t start spreading at the very least? Tristan didn’t see weird mentions online or hear of odd happenings second hand? And again, if it is true that the magic is a kind of defense then that needs to be stated in the book not me making an assumption on its behalf.
Tristan actively puts everyone at risk before choosing to set sail for Angola for his own self interest even though he'd been warned off yet he feels no guilt for this decision when it almost destroys Mami Wata’s ship since it was a trap. No one brings up the misstep or shames him either. What was the point in making it a trap in the first place if there was no fallout?
Right before the halfway point, Anansi is ticked enough at Tristan’s failure that he actually gets Tristan’s Anansesem duties suspended pending further review by the Gods. He’s desperate to find Junior and mad because Tristan wants to go after Cotton before rescuing the Alkeans only for Tristan's plan literally 3 pages later to be…. rescue the Alkeans before going after Cotton. What was the point in this fight or escalating so far only for Tristan to change his mind immediately? There were other, far better ways to separate Tristan from the SBP.
High John starts to consume his stories assuming that it would make him stronger because he was using the power behind the stories to bolster him, however, this actually makes him weaker because the strength comes from the belief in the stories ie people trading them, sharing them, etc rather than the existence of the story alone. He becomes so weak he eventually dies as the stories no longer are out there being told. Except this flat out doesn’t make any sense.
1, the US isn't the entire world. 2, there are people who study folklore 3, Tristan's family aren't the only people who would trade the stories amongst each other as a community venture. So shouldn't he literally be incapable of dying? Like he's built on stories? How does that die? Especially when he apparently is the amalgamation of every 'John' story that's out there. There are an infinite amount of tales surrounding this figure. Somebody somewhere is believing and as long as they do then shouldn’t he always be able to live? Plus, the crux of the story is that King Cotton is harnessing story energy for nefarious purposes. Why does he get stronger, but High John instead dies?
(Also, I feel a little like a God would know this already and like not do that because the entire series is predicated on the idea that stories need to be told to people but I digress.)
New Orleans has a lot of storied history when it comes to Black people. None of the history, namely the racism that went into the literal construction of the city, is ever discussed. Hurricane Katrina and the fallout of that, for example, is never mentioned. Homelessness is supposed to be a major plot thread. Post-Katrina homelessness swelled to practically 4x its rate before. Why not connect the two or establish a trend?
It’s further evidence of how vaguely the book is written. It gives the impression that Mbalia was purposely avoiding writing anything that would require additional research or looking back at the previous books.
If homelessness and the fact that Black kids/people who are homeless are more likely to be homeless and be ignored for being homeless is so important then why wasn’t Memphis made into a main character? They could have given actual insight into the epidemic. Instead we got new kids popping up at irregular intervals to be grateful to Tristan for noticing them or saying loaded comments like 'oh it's real rough out here' with no explanation as to what exactly is so rough. It attempts to get points for 'saying something' sans real effort.
I do not doubt that it is awful to live out on the streets or to not have a stable place to stay every night. However, the whole point in adding a social issue into a book is to fully explore the concept. You don’t know what a reader already knows coming into a story - if you choose to add a social issue you should feel obligated to do some legwork.
Also, this book conflates homelessness with foster care. Foster care kids do not strictly have homes in the family sense - a home is wherever I’m with you etc - and it can be unstable, but it’s not the same as being literally homeless. There is still a sense of structure. Obviously, the foster care system is imperfect. Kids do end up abused in the system or lacking in basic rights. That being said, while that may mean that kids in both situations may have similar feelings about their experiences, it does not make the two situations the same. They have individual hardships that should be addressed as such.
Granny Z - a magical woman who gains power from her belief in the goddess Erzulie but is not an Alkean transplant - runs a skate park that Thandiwe was kicking it at with High John. She is presented as providing a haven for at-risk kids except what she’s doing is a childs’ idea of helping. She knowingly allows kids who are runaways and orphans stay at the skate park. Is she not at all concerned about the liability of dozens of kids she barely knows being in her place of business at all hours? Where do these kids sleep? Social media culture makes it even more ludicrous; I don’t buy that a set-up of this scale would stay a secret.
Thandiwe and High John were apparently arranging permanent living arrangements, but that only raises more questions: how the heck are they doing that when their idea of this world is literally only like 3 weeks old? There are people who struggle in America after emigrating years ago. Yet, I’m supposed to believe after a few weeks Thandiwe and High John have it down enough to engage with social services, lawyers, landlords, and who knows who else to make this work?
Like I called back in Book 1, Ayanna and Tristan now have mutual feelings for one another. We still know nothing about Ayanna and their crushes sprung up out of nowhere. While I knew this was coming, there was literally no evidence to suggest it in-text. The two were purely platonic in every way up until now. Any allusions to the contrary were sparse and arguably ill-founded: I’m simply highly attuned to romantic underpinnings.
Patty Rollers has these minions - Redliners - who pop-up throughout the city. The two we meet are two normal racist white people contradicting the internal logic the book has been running on that only Alkeans or those naturally touched by a bit of Alke can see magic. All of those people are established to be Black. White people are not suggested to be blessed in this manner. Is Patty Roller simply that strong? Did she gift them powers to see her? Your guess is as good as mine.
They act like goofy 80s cartoon characters thereby undermining the very real harm such behavior causes. They mindlessly parrot racist rhetoric that has no teeth because it’s all generic, arbitrary statements. There is no reason for this to even be a plot point. They have no impact on larger plot beats. This is subjective, but they’re not funny. And I cannot stress enough how bad it is to sell kids on blatantly racist actions disguised as innocuous fights for ‘civil liberties’ as a joke when it’s one of the most insidious forms of racism there is.
Tristan’s arc follows the same path as his arcs always do: introduce at the start, drop it 25% or so in, don’t mention it again until it’s time to finish the book out. His anger momentarily causes him strife, but it doesn’t impede him further after the first time it’s a problem. Trust me, there were plenty of opportunities for it to sabotage him that would have tied the whole thread together.
TSKP is the culmination of every issue I’ve had with this series with a few others tacked on for fun. I cannot /not/ recommend this enough. A kid probably will be fine, but there are other better series out there. I am utterly disappointed by how much potential this series wasted. I could write more (I did write more, editing down is a beast) but I'll leave it here now for my own sanity.
rebeccabadger's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
inspiring
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
morganly's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
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
5.0
ju_els's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
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
4.5
thatbookishwriter's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
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
3.5
agayprince's review against another edition
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
kaitsbooked's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
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
4.5
miraclemarg's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
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
_geminigenres's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
tense
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
5.0
bibliomania_express's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Tristan Strong Keeps Punching by Kwame Mbalia is the final book in the Tristan Strong trilogy and it packs all the punches promised by the title.
Like in the previous books, Tristan grapples with trauma and the power of storytelling, but this book is about the stories that aren't told. It's about the way history is woven into the roots of cities, communities, and lives, but is also erased, sanitized, and avoided. How bigotry and hate hide behind the mask of concern and law.
To save disappearing children and finally defeat the evil haint Cotton, Tristan will have to uncover stories of the past, of slave plantations, civil war, and persecutions. He'll have to find a way to stand up for his people and keep punching against all odds.
This book is heavy. Sure, it has its moments of middle grade levity, which Mbalia expertly uses to break up the heavy and feel true to his twelve-year-old protagonist. But he also doesn't shy away from the traumas of slavery, racism, and bigotry.
There are a couple small things I could quibble about - plot points dropped and new characters introduced than moved on from too quickly - but this is such an important book and such a fitting conclusion to this series that I'll refrain.
Like in the previous books, Tristan grapples with trauma and the power of storytelling, but this book is about the stories that aren't told. It's about the way history is woven into the roots of cities, communities, and lives, but is also erased, sanitized, and avoided. How bigotry and hate hide behind the mask of concern and law.
To save disappearing children and finally defeat the evil haint Cotton, Tristan will have to uncover stories of the past, of slave plantations, civil war, and persecutions. He'll have to find a way to stand up for his people and keep punching against all odds.
This book is heavy. Sure, it has its moments of middle grade levity, which Mbalia expertly uses to break up the heavy and feel true to his twelve-year-old protagonist. But he also doesn't shy away from the traumas of slavery, racism, and bigotry.
There are a couple small things I could quibble about - plot points dropped and new characters introduced than moved on from too quickly - but this is such an important book and such a fitting conclusion to this series that I'll refrain.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Colonisation, Racism, Slavery, and Confinement
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Death, Trafficking, Gaslighting, and War
Minor: Police brutality