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betweentheshelves's review
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Thanks to Little, Brown for an advanced copy of this to review!
After her grandmother passes away, Shania and her mother move to Blue Rock for a fresh start. However, Shania's troubled by something her grandmother said before she died, apologizing for the lies. Shania doesn't understand what her grandmother meant until she learns more about her histroy in Blue Rock. A history Shania didn't know existed.
Let me start by saying I appreciated what this book was trying to do. Shania is white, and for most of her life, she never really thought about her race or the way race impacts her privilege. Before moving to Blue Rock, characterized as a big city, she didn't really believe she had to think about it. A lot of this book is Shania working through her own thoughts about the fact that her family's histroy is colored by racism, and that she's confronted with it every day at school. There are some important conversations that happen in this book because of that, and I think they are good conversations for what is probably a white target audience. There aren't necessarily a lot of YA books that deal with racism in this particular way, and I appreciate what the author tried to do.
However, I don't think the writing was particularly strong and overall, I don't think Shania changes enough throughout the book. The ending feels kind of abrupt, with not much resolution after a very, very slow moving story. There are hints throughout that her boyfriend, Prescott, is a bad (racist) dude, but his portrayal felt a bit disjointed? Or at least, we get more telling about what he's actually like rather than showing. We get most of our information about Prescott second hand from other characters, and while this gives the feeling that he's an incredibly violent white supremacist, it's still not really shown in the interactions we do see with him.
The interactions between characters also don't necessarily feel realistic. The plot, the characters, and the setting don't feel like they meld together very well, making the writing itself feel choppy and not very well put together. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the plot and small details, which I know it's partly because this is an ARC, but still. Shania's character didn't feel very consistent throughout, and I wanted the information about her family history to have more of an impact on her. Like, it has an impact on her, but it generally doesn't seem to change how she views the world.
Finally, this is one of those YA books where it feels like an adult writing teenage characters. There was just something about the way they were characterized and written that felt off to me. A lot of the time, they didn't really feel like teenagers in the way they talked, interacted, and just their general actions throughout. I just got a general weird vibe from the characters and didn't really care about any of them, to be honest.
All in all, even though this book is definitely tackling an important message, the overall writing left something to be desired for me. It felt very much like a debut YA, and a debut YA that needs a lot more editing before the final draft.
After her grandmother passes away, Shania and her mother move to Blue Rock for a fresh start. However, Shania's troubled by something her grandmother said before she died, apologizing for the lies. Shania doesn't understand what her grandmother meant until she learns more about her histroy in Blue Rock. A history Shania didn't know existed.
Let me start by saying I appreciated what this book was trying to do. Shania is white, and for most of her life, she never really thought about her race or the way race impacts her privilege. Before moving to Blue Rock, characterized as a big city, she didn't really believe she had to think about it. A lot of this book is Shania working through her own thoughts about the fact that her family's histroy is colored by racism, and that she's confronted with it every day at school. There are some important conversations that happen in this book because of that, and I think they are good conversations for what is probably a white target audience. There aren't necessarily a lot of YA books that deal with racism in this particular way, and I appreciate what the author tried to do.
However, I don't think the writing was particularly strong and overall, I don't think Shania changes enough throughout the book. The ending feels kind of abrupt, with not much resolution after a very, very slow moving story. There are hints throughout that her boyfriend, Prescott, is a bad (racist) dude, but his portrayal felt a bit disjointed? Or at least, we get more telling about what he's actually like rather than showing. We get most of our information about Prescott second hand from other characters, and while this gives the feeling that he's an incredibly violent white supremacist, it's still not really shown in the interactions we do see with him.
The interactions between characters also don't necessarily feel realistic. The plot, the characters, and the setting don't feel like they meld together very well, making the writing itself feel choppy and not very well put together. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the plot and small details, which I know it's partly because this is an ARC, but still. Shania's character didn't feel very consistent throughout, and I wanted the information about her family history to have more of an impact on her. Like, it has an impact on her, but it generally doesn't seem to change how she views the world.
Finally, this is one of those YA books where it feels like an adult writing teenage characters. There was just something about the way they were characterized and written that felt off to me. A lot of the time, they didn't really feel like teenagers in the way they talked, interacted, and just their general actions throughout. I just got a general weird vibe from the characters and didn't really care about any of them, to be honest.
All in all, even though this book is definitely tackling an important message, the overall writing left something to be desired for me. It felt very much like a debut YA, and a debut YA that needs a lot more editing before the final draft.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Racism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death
Moderate: Hate crime and Toxic friendship
Minor: Violence
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