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Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'
La casa en el mar más azul. Edición especial: Edición especial con cantos tintados by TJ Klune, Carlos Abreu Fetter
105 reviews
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
sad
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
I haven’t cried this hard while reading since The Invisible Life of Addie Larue — this book is absolutely beautiful. When I started reading, I was not enthralled. I hated boring, stuffy, rule-abiding Linus and I thought the children were too similar to those in Ms. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. What I didn’t know was how deeply I was going to fall in love with Linus, Arthur, Zoe, Helen, Lucy, Chauncey, Phee, Talia, Theodore, Sal, and Calliope. This book weaves a tale that on the surface is about magical orphans deserving to be cared for properly but at its depths is a critique of all types of bigotry, a call to action for doing what’s right even when it’s scary, and a manifesto about loving yourself no matter what the world thinks of you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Abandonment
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Xenophobia
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Grief, Religious bigotry
Minor: Homophobia, Death of parent, Abandonment
challenging
emotional
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Child abuse, Confinement, Homophobia, Racism, Forced institutionalization
adventurous
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
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:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Minor: Body shaming, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
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
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Homophobia
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
slow-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
Whilst I really enjoyed the book, the author did fall into some harmful tropes. The author used the experiences and stories of indigenous people to write his story for example some of creatures and the folklore, but, also residential schools , without treating those elements with the appropriate care- sounding, at times, rather callous for example the fact that the government and adults are scared of the magical children. Which has been incredibly harmful in history for the populations which the author has based his story upon .
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting
Minor: Confinement, Homophobia, Fire/Fire injury
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
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:
N/A
Content Warnings
Minor: Homophobia
Needed to be returned to the library and I also have other books to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Homophobia, Xenophobia, Religious bigotry
emotional
funny
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Death of parent
Minor: Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book reads like a dated children's movie that feels as whimsical as Klaus and tries very hard to be progressive. It's been touted as a YA novel and as difficult as some of these topics might be for more children, marking it for YA while having older white men as protagonists seems like a stretch. At best, it's middle grade.
I appreciate its blunt cartoonish-ness though, it suspends your disbelief for a while. An orphanage for difficult, magical children visited by a dull, old caseworker who does his best to do right by them. His world gets a little less dull when meeting the unorthodox orphanage at Marsyas and its owner (or, master, however weird that sounds on paper). It writes itself like a rom-com, and it kind of is. A really cartoonish, quirky, and charming rom-com with a lot of little kids running around.
I found myself growing to like this book even after the initial chapters. It was slow-going at first, and the turn wasn't as subtle as it was fast. The narration itself wanting both to put us in Linus' head (especially in cases of extreme anxiety) while also keeping us out of it (in this case, when he starts warming up to the children).
A little nitpick of mine while reading this book was that I couldn't place its time period or place. It deems itself to be placed in the South but the speech patterns for some were suggestively British. There are scenes where it suggests that it is set in the present (record stores telling one of the children that they liked old music and the existence of computers), but Linus still has to send correspondences and reports through the post and if it were placed in America, the speech patterns would also suggest that this would technically be a period piece on top of its magical realism.It all comes to a head during the later chapters, when Arthur and Linus talk about how Arthur is the first magical being to ever have run their own orphanage and that he was silenced and prohibited from revealing it. Holding the suggestion that of all the years these institutions have existed not a single activist group had arisen. Linus talks of magical beings in professional roles but says nothing of activist groups or names any.
Again, this is a cartoonish rom-com of a children's-not-YA book banking on the fiction of a fake marginalized group, but so maybe expecting it to be a little less like that would be disingenuous. The criticism exists though.
Here, on the other hand are some very problematic things I found about it:
I appreciate its blunt cartoonish-ness though, it suspends your disbelief for a while. An orphanage for difficult, magical children visited by a dull, old caseworker who does his best to do right by them. His world gets a little less dull when meeting the unorthodox orphanage at Marsyas and its owner (or, master, however weird that sounds on paper). It writes itself like a rom-com, and it kind of is. A really cartoonish, quirky, and charming rom-com with a lot of little kids running around.
I found myself growing to like this book even after the initial chapters. It was slow-going at first, and the turn wasn't as subtle as it was fast. The narration itself wanting both to put us in Linus' head (especially in cases of extreme anxiety) while also keeping us out of it (in this case, when he starts warming up to the children).
A little nitpick of mine while reading this book was that I couldn't place its time period or place. It deems itself to be placed in the South but the speech patterns for some were suggestively British. There are scenes where it suggests that it is set in the present (record stores telling one of the children that they liked old music and the existence of computers), but Linus still has to send correspondences and reports through the post and if it were placed in America, the speech patterns would also suggest that this would technically be a period piece on top of its magical realism.
Again, this is a cartoonish rom-com of a children's-not-YA book banking on the fiction of a fake marginalized group, but so maybe expecting it to be a little less like that would be disingenuous. The criticism exists though.
Here, on the other hand are some very problematic things I found about it:
- That the concept of children in homes like these were allegorical to the abduction and institutionalization of Indigenous children is a tad concerning, seeing as there is not a single child of color.
- There's a lot of rampant fatphobia in this book, coming from the narrative character and the people he used to work with.
- There were a lot of Whoopi Epiphany Speeches that kind of feel awkward.
- We also have a Black woman who fulfills a caretaker role
and is a being of magic , and though the book doesn't treat her badly, one should be mindful of the fallings of tropes like these.
Overall, despite its flaws, it's a cheesy rom-com of a book that reads like a dated children's movie on the vein of Klaus and maybe a bit of The Parent Trap. It is what it is and despite all of that, is kind of stronger than the sum of its parts.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fatphobia, Hate crime, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Misogyny
Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Violence