Reviews - Gutter Child | The StoryGraph

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345 reviews for:

Gutter Child

Jael Richardson

3.92 AVERAGE

pomoevareads's review

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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: Complicated

“Don’t go looking for your reflection in someone else’s mirror.”

Oh how this book affected me and how valuable it is for people to read right now!!!

Gutter child is the story of five young people who meet at the Livingstone Academy on the Mainland of a fictional land. The children were born in the Gutter, a section that is full of hardship and one where people can work much of their lives and not have the freedoms of the mainlanders. They are at the academy to learn to work and to do work until they graduate and are auctioned off to employers where they can begin paying off their debts with the hopes of gaining Redemption Freedom.

The system is based on one familiar to me as a Canadian. I live in a country that has been colonized by non indigenous persons, Canada stole their land, changed the laws under which indigenous peoples could live, sent them to learn the Canadian ways in Residential schools and at times were adopted out to non indigenous families when the Canadian government determined a parent unfit to raise their children or grandchildren.

This book is not about indigenous peoples or any other identified groups specifically but if you don’t find yourself thinking about the injustices present today when reading this book then I encourage you to go back and read it.

Black Lives Matter, protests, racism, police brutality and use of force against persons of colour. These are the things that kept coming up for me while reading this book.

This book is going to make you think. Writing this review I am inundated with just how many relevant themes the author was able to cover in this book all while weaving a story with some hope, beautifully developed characters, lines that you want to read more than once for their beauty and that inspires me to take more actions than I currently am to forward diverse voices and stand up against hate.

Gutter Child falls under dystopian fiction but is not so far from present day reality.

This novel is one of the best books I have ever read and I will recommend this book to anyone who will listen to me and will push it on teachers to teach in school.

I feel like I could gush on this book all day and urge you to read it. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

kauffeetablebooks's review

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Welcome to a Dystopian world that feels so real. Jael Richardson has brought something special in her debut novel. Truthfully, I used to read this style when I was in university and I never really dreamed that this style of book would become so close to reality it is somewhat scary.

Jael’s narrative introduces us to a young woman who’s strength and courage grows throughout the story in her search for her freedom. This imaginary world that is divided into the privileged Mainland and the Gutter. The world runs by forcing the most vulnerable of the population to buy their freedom. The “Gutter” people are born with a debt to society. Elimina is special though, as part of a social experiment led by the government she experiences the highs and the lows of both classes of people. Her life has so many unexpected twists and turns and she must navigate her reality and work towards breaking the injustices that society places on the marginalized communities.

This is another book that I took in and really dealt with some heavy topics. Although this book was fictional the elements that Jael brought to the table felt all but real. If you choose to pick up this book, I implore you to look at it with a lens to our current world and what continues to take place in our vulnerable communities.

mskennedyreads's review against another edition

2.5

I’ve had this digital ARC for a year, but given the author’s warning at the beginning about how bleak the world of the novel is, I delayed reading it. I finally read it, with an eye to teaching it. I do not think this is YA, but more New Adult, and any old adult would certainly be able to connect the injustices in the novel to injustices today in our world.

The first third was a slog for me - a lot of world building via info dumping. I put it down for several days. The last third was gripping, and the pacing, characterization, and trajectory came together.

I appreciate the allegory of the Gutter, even though it felt at several times, more an allegory of colonial genocide of Indigenous nations in North America than an allegory of enslavement, auctioning off, segregation, red lining, incarceration, etc. of Black folks. I don’t know that it needs to be one or the other definitively, except that I felt a bit uncomfortable since it wouldn’t be Indigenous #ownvoices. I read an interview by the author where she mentioned thinking about her Black ancestors as indigenous to their nation/land, and that helped me understand.

In terms of teaching, I probably wouldn’t. The teacher’s guide is really solid, and I’m going to pull some of the related nonfiction texts to use with other novels, but this novel is really, really bleak. If we were not in pandemic times, I might tackle a book like this. Some things I have to keep in mind if I do teach it: murky consent around sex, suicide, murder, sexual assault, power of media and first person storytelling at changing narratives, limits of human empathy, body horror/birthing. Like you could really dig in to so many issues and concepts that I regularly teach my students - just this particular novel may not be how I keep doing that work.

readwellreviews's review

4.0

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

soobooksalot's review

4.0

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Gutter Child is both alarming and fascinating in it's depiction of a dystopian alternate reality.
Elimina Dubois lives in a nation divided into the Mainland and Gutter. She was raised in the Mainland despite being destined for the Gutter. When her mother passes, she is sent to an academy intended to prepare Gutter children to work in a trade to pay off their debt to society.
I went into this fairly blind and it took me awhile to wrap my head into the depicted system and characters, but once the story took an unexpected turn, I was hooked!
I don't read a lot of dystopian fiction, but it's always so interesting to become part of a world with features and experiences that so mirror our own.
Canadian debut author Jael Richardson has created an unforgettable tale with parallels to issues of colonialism, race, class, of society's have and have-nots, of rising up against the system.
Recommended!

Content Warnings

taya's review

5.0

challenging emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

pearlsandwool's review against another edition

5.0

Gutter Child is a 2021 must-read! This book should be on school reading lists everywhere! Read this one in your Zoom book clubs this year!

It reads easily like a mature YA novel, but while it reads easily the content is heavy. It is relevant and fresh while being about colonial and systemic racism which is still going on in our society.

To start, you must understand that there are many key players and groups in the novel: Mainlanders, Sossi, and The Network, The Hill. The Mainlanders are the privileged people who took over and created the Gutter System, forcing the Sossi people to live away from them, policed, and riddled with debts that they spend their lives paying back. The Hill and Network become more relevant later in the book.

The novel follows Elimina, brave and resilient, in her formative years, while providing the story of her history. While she is different than her peers, she is going through the academy track which is meant to rehabilitate the Gutter Children.

I won’t say more because you should be reading this book right now.

It is a fantastic look at systemic discrimination, racism, and justice. Jael Richardson is a beautiful writer and I absolutely loved reading this novel even when it left me heartbroken and angry throughout the pages.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Harper Collins Canada in exchange for a fair and honest review, and I’d like to thank them and Jael Richardson for the advance copy.