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4.37 AVERAGE
4.37 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
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
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
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:
Complicated
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
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I loved every character except the ones I was supposed to hate. I miss Frankie now that I'm done reading, even though she frustrated me at times!
emotional
hopeful
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
There are so many things I don’t know that I don’t know that I don’t know them.
Fern is a 12-year-old girl who is happy and content living in an “off-the-grid sustainable farming community” that an adult reader will recognize as a cult a page in. That is, until her mother spirits her away to a tiny town in California to start anew in the big, scary outside world. What follows is a chain of Fern’s attempts to get back home, to that wondrous place of stability and safety, underscored by growing realizations that maybe her mom has a point after all. Maybe there was something wrong with the farm.
This is a subject I didn’t expect to see explored in a middle grade book for some reason, so when Storygraph recced it to me out of the blue, I got curious. Definitely no regrets about picking it up! This was a super engrossing read, though I keep wondering what it would’ve been like for me if I read it as a kid. Would it be as obvious to me what an unreliable narrator Fern is? Would I be cheering on her to succeed at her attempts to contact Dr. Ben, or would I feel the same “no, no, no, please don’t let her succeed” type of tension? I guess I’ll never know, but I enjoyed the experience of rooting against the protagonist’s choices because I was so invested in her getting better, and she was doing all the things that could only lead to worse. I was also super invested in her mom’s arc and felt for her a lot: things were so incredibly hard for her, and she’d fucked up a lot to make them this way, but there she was being brave and taking responsibility. The author did a great job showing only the glimpses of her journey that it was logical for Fern to see and let the reader piece together the rest —and it all made a perfect amount of sense.
The cast of secondary and tertiary characters skewed heavily toward wonderfully kind people anyone would be lucky to have in their lives, and at times I found myself wondering how Fern and her mom would fare if Babs wasn’t so caring, or if the family owning the motel Fern’s mother worked at wasn’t so kindhearted, or if Fern’s science teacher was less enthusiastic, or if Eddy was less inclined to roll with all the little weirdnesses Fern carried with her after spending half her life in a cult. Then it got me wondering what it says about me that I apparently don’t consider basic kindness to be a natural state of human society, and… I guess I’ll leave the details of that existential crisis out of this review, lol. Suffice it to say, this is what the world should be, and I’m happy the book depicts it that way. Plus, it does show how good people can fuck up with the best of intentions, and there are characters who are less inclined to be accepting and helpful, plus someone I can only earnestly describe as morally gray. All in all, every character here felt well-developed, with clear goals and motivations, and I enjoyed getting to know them.
Fern’s journey from total indoctrination to beginning to embrace life in this big, scary outside world was overall beautifully done, with all the setbacks, stumbles, and lingering fears that are logical in this situation, but maintaining a strong sense of hope throughout. I loved how reading books was a big part of what made her start doubting Dr. Ben’s teaching, as well as how she didn’t discard *everything* she’d been taught on the farm wholesale, instead choosing to preserve the parts that rang true: caring about nature, wanting to make the world a better place. She wasn’t always a pleasant character to follow, being the kind of surly only a lost and angry pre-teen can be, but even at her worst, she made me feel for her.
The single small grip I have with the book is that when a number of bad things happened at the same time late in the story, it felt like a bit of an overkill. Individually, each of the converging storylines made sense, but something about the way they came together felt like overkill. Too dramatic, not quite natural, too convenient in a certain way (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here, can you tell). After that specific point, though, a really satisfying ending still happened, and my enjoyment of the book wasn’t really dampened.
Also, this is a second MG book in a row that I pick up randomly without expecting to see any queer themes, and it has queer characters just casually existing in the MC’s orbit, treated no differently than straight ones??? Love this. It’s such a great proof that despite all the problems the world faces on the daily, certain things do get better, society does get more accepting. As humans, we do grow.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Death
Minor: Animal death, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail
adventurous
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes