A review by mitskacir
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

3.0

Adding to my list of books I read but didn't understand. This book had a very Moonrise Kingdom vibe to it, from the children running away from incompetent parents, the freak storm, and all the white people (there was one, maybe two, non-white people mentioned, but their ethnicity had little to no impact on their characterization - if I wasn't explicitly told, I wouldn't have any way of knowing - and everyone seemed white-coded. I was a bit wary of the only character of Asian decent (adopted) being described multiple times, scathingly, as having "old banana breath" or as a "banana". I'm not sure if this was an intentional racial slight, or if the author was oblivious. If it was used consciously, I'm not sure what the point was). Despite all this, it was an enjoyable book - the children were written very convincingly, speaking and thinking like teenagers I know. I need to think more about the literary symbolism between Biblical disasters and the modern ills described in the book (mostly climate change): they seemed pretty straight-forward, but I have a feeling they merit more attention.