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gillian0231 's review for:
We Can Never Leave
by H.E. Edgmon
DID NOT FINISH: 37%
DNF @ 37% - 2 stars for a really strong concept
I think I just need to accept that this book is a DNF. At this point I’ve read three books since putting this one down and I’ve had no desire to pick this one back up. Honestly it’s such a shame because this story had such an interesting premise, but it was just not being executed well. I love the idea of group of kids that are basically fantasy creatures trying to solve the sudden and unexplainable disappearance of the rest of their people. The way the author made them half human half mythical beings was well done and seeing their internal struggles to accept either side of them was also very interesting. However, these personal struggles and the personal problems between all of the kids seemed to be completely overtaking the story. I really wanted to get into the plot and see them go on this adventure to get their families back, but instead we just got pages and pages of internal monologue. Based on other reviews this doesn’t seem to get better and the overall plot just kind of gets forgotten. For some books this may be fine, but personally I started finding the main characters incredibly annoying. They were just whining and whining the whole time about everything but never doing anything to fix it. Also, I know this is going to sound bad, but it started feeling like the diversity olympics. You know that meme “diversity final boss” and it’s that drawing of the solo polyamorous hijabi amputee? That’s what this book was. Each character was fighting to be even non-binary, non-cis, non-straight, non-white than the next. I 100% support diversity and it is absolutely necessary to see it in all of our media. These books filled with only straight, cis, white characters are extremely unrealistic and ultimately harmful to our perception of the world. But when that is all your book is about and it is not delivering on the actual plot it promises, then that becomes unrealistic. Identity is important, but people are more than their labels. They have personalities, they have complex relationships with others, they have goals and motivations, and they deserve to be seen as more than their outward appearance. If there was a good balance between these kids exploring their identities and an actual plot, then this wouldn’t be an issue, but as I said, the plot was abandoned.
And oh my god, don’t even get me started on the weird author interjections in some of the chapters. They were all so millennial-coded and I needed to put down the book for a little bit after every one. It was written so childishly that I would almost say this is a middle-grade book if it wasn’t for the few somewhat explicit scenes. There was just a really weird tonal difference from one scene to the next, which greatly disrupted the flow of the story.
Again, there was a really strong base here and the beginning of the book was really interesting, so I’ll give the book credit there, but I realized that what I enjoyed about the story was going nowhere and I needed to give up on it.
I think I just need to accept that this book is a DNF. At this point I’ve read three books since putting this one down and I’ve had no desire to pick this one back up. Honestly it’s such a shame because this story had such an interesting premise, but it was just not being executed well. I love the idea of group of kids that are basically fantasy creatures trying to solve the sudden and unexplainable disappearance of the rest of their people. The way the author made them half human half mythical beings was well done and seeing their internal struggles to accept either side of them was also very interesting. However, these personal struggles and the personal problems between all of the kids seemed to be completely overtaking the story. I really wanted to get into the plot and see them go on this adventure to get their families back, but instead we just got pages and pages of internal monologue. Based on other reviews this doesn’t seem to get better and the overall plot just kind of gets forgotten. For some books this may be fine, but personally I started finding the main characters incredibly annoying. They were just whining and whining the whole time about everything but never doing anything to fix it. Also, I know this is going to sound bad, but it started feeling like the diversity olympics. You know that meme “diversity final boss” and it’s that drawing of the solo polyamorous hijabi amputee? That’s what this book was. Each character was fighting to be even non-binary, non-cis, non-straight, non-white than the next. I 100% support diversity and it is absolutely necessary to see it in all of our media. These books filled with only straight, cis, white characters are extremely unrealistic and ultimately harmful to our perception of the world. But when that is all your book is about and it is not delivering on the actual plot it promises, then that becomes unrealistic. Identity is important, but people are more than their labels. They have personalities, they have complex relationships with others, they have goals and motivations, and they deserve to be seen as more than their outward appearance. If there was a good balance between these kids exploring their identities and an actual plot, then this wouldn’t be an issue, but as I said, the plot was abandoned.
And oh my god, don’t even get me started on the weird author interjections in some of the chapters. They were all so millennial-coded and I needed to put down the book for a little bit after every one. It was written so childishly that I would almost say this is a middle-grade book if it wasn’t for the few somewhat explicit scenes. There was just a really weird tonal difference from one scene to the next, which greatly disrupted the flow of the story.
Again, there was a really strong base here and the beginning of the book was really interesting, so I’ll give the book credit there, but I realized that what I enjoyed about the story was going nowhere and I needed to give up on it.