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pwbalto 's review for:
Dust & Grim
by Chuck Wendig
It is probably just my imagination. But sometimes when I read a middle grade novel written by someone who usually writes for older readers, I detect a bit of a sneer. Not toward the readers, but toward other writers, writers who make it their business to write for children. I detect an attitude like, 'children can handle a lot more than most people think,' which, sure, is true for the most part. I detect an obstinate refusal to simplify the vocabulary - ok fine I GUESS - and a defiant insistence that because kids are more open to, I don't know, I guess magical thinking? they don't care about things like 'closure,' 'redemption,' or 'realistic motivation.'
All of which is to say - sure, Chuck Wendig. You do you. You want to round out your book about siblings separated for no decent reason, raised by different parents, one parent a selfish idiot and both recently deceased, with a hug and a happily ever after and you think your kid readers will respect this because fairy tale logic? Go ahead. But the balance is off. You can blow past trauma like this if you hit it super lightly - a lawyer shows up on the beach and tells you your parents are dead - or if you circle back to it in the end and find out WHY your parents chopped off your head - but you can't use it as the motivation for both characters acting like dicks throughout the book and then in the end shrug and go, "eh, doesn't matter!"
Kids will roll through this book without a second thought, enjoying the magical forest and slightly baffled by the farm to table food references, which is perfectly fine, I am always in the market for a book I can pitch into the gaping maw of voracious adventure fantasy readers... but those same readers are going to spot unresolved trauma a mile away.
All of which is to say - sure, Chuck Wendig. You do you. You want to round out your book about siblings separated for no decent reason, raised by different parents, one parent a selfish idiot and both recently deceased, with a hug and a happily ever after and you think your kid readers will respect this because fairy tale logic? Go ahead. But the balance is off. You can blow past trauma like this if you hit it super lightly - a lawyer shows up on the beach and tells you your parents are dead - or if you circle back to it in the end and find out WHY your parents chopped off your head - but you can't use it as the motivation for both characters acting like dicks throughout the book and then in the end shrug and go, "eh, doesn't matter!"
Kids will roll through this book without a second thought, enjoying the magical forest and slightly baffled by the farm to table food references, which is perfectly fine, I am always in the market for a book I can pitch into the gaping maw of voracious adventure fantasy readers... but those same readers are going to spot unresolved trauma a mile away.