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A review by klduncan86
The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games by Ebony Elizabeth Thomas
4.0
Technically a 3.5 rounded up to 4. Despite my misgivings I highly recommend this book to readers and watchers of YA fantasy/horror/scifi books, as there is a lot of really great information.
The theme of the book is great, as a white non-binary reader from the older millennial age group, the largest problem I had was the inclusion of fan fiction. The chapter on the Hunger Games I thought was great (I'd use the word fantastic, but because of how it is used in the book, I don't feel like it is the correct word here). The following chapters, had a lot less on how people reacted on social media, and more about how people, mostly black adolescents, perceived the readings through fan fiction. In terms of Gwen in Merlin it was not a large "problem," but between Bonnie in Vampire Diaries, and the characters in Harry Potter I thought it was a determent to the overall narrative of the book. I understand how some of this is due to the how different age groups "respond" to books, but I do feel that, at least in the case of Harry Potter, that some of the fan fiction analysis was outside of what I wanted to understand from this book.
The theme of the book is great, as a white non-binary reader from the older millennial age group, the largest problem I had was the inclusion of fan fiction. The chapter on the Hunger Games I thought was great (I'd use the word fantastic, but because of how it is used in the book, I don't feel like it is the correct word here). The following chapters, had a lot less on how people reacted on social media, and more about how people, mostly black adolescents, perceived the readings through fan fiction. In terms of Gwen in Merlin it was not a large "problem," but between Bonnie in Vampire Diaries, and the characters in Harry Potter I thought it was a determent to the overall narrative of the book. I understand how some of this is due to the how different age groups "respond" to books, but I do feel that, at least in the case of Harry Potter, that some of the fan fiction analysis was outside of what I wanted to understand from this book.