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andrea_rossiter 's review for:
The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones
by Daven McQueen
I feel a bit bad about rating this only one star. It's not that it's a terrible book. It's just that I did not like it. I've never read this story before, and yet I have read this story dozens of times before. There is nothing original about it at all. I could predict everything that happened because it was absolutely replete with cliche. The characters were underdeveloped and the plot was dull.
I simply could not bring myself to care for the characters because I kept being distracted by the acute sense that they were not real. It's a historical fiction but there were times when I had to pause and double check that the story was set in 1955, because the dialogue felt so modern. The first time a character used the slang term "nerd", I stopped and asked myself "did people even use that word in 1955?", so I googled it and quickly found that yes, the term nerd originates from 1951 but that the meaning of the word has changed since then. In 1955 the word "nerd" was equivalent to calling someone "square" as in "uncool" or "out of touch" but the way the characters used it was in the modern day meaning of the word. I was also confused that Ethan's parents were divorced, because as far as I know, divorce required some kind of "proof of wrong-doing" to go through back then, and it's just not explained at all how that worked for them. I know they are minor details, but they really added up and I kept feeling thrown for a loop because it felt like the writer was just picking and choosing which parts of 1950s life to apply to her story.
I also didn't understand how Ethan's father could claim he "didn't know" sending his son there would be so terrible. He grew up in that town but somehow "didn't know" it was violently racist?? Come on. I don't buy that for a second. Look I'm not American, so maybe I don't know enough about how racism varied by state in the 50s, but I also find it hard to believe that Ethan had never encountered racism until that point? Am I to believe California was somehow miraculously devoid of racism in 1955 except for one nasty kid in his school? I'm just confused. I felt the story was hugely inconsistent in that regard. Lastly, the characters read more as being 11-12 years old than 15.
Again, I feel a bit mean rating this one star, I think the intention behind it is good, it's just that the execution of it fell short.
I simply could not bring myself to care for the characters because I kept being distracted by the acute sense that they were not real. It's a historical fiction but there were times when I had to pause and double check that the story was set in 1955, because the dialogue felt so modern. The first time a character used the slang term "nerd", I stopped and asked myself "did people even use that word in 1955?", so I googled it and quickly found that yes, the term nerd originates from 1951 but that the meaning of the word has changed since then. In 1955 the word "nerd" was equivalent to calling someone "square" as in "uncool" or "out of touch" but the way the characters used it was in the modern day meaning of the word. I was also confused that Ethan's parents were divorced, because as far as I know, divorce required some kind of "proof of wrong-doing" to go through back then, and it's just not explained at all how that worked for them. I know they are minor details, but they really added up and I kept feeling thrown for a loop because it felt like the writer was just picking and choosing which parts of 1950s life to apply to her story.
I also didn't understand how Ethan's father could claim he "didn't know" sending his son there would be so terrible. He grew up in that town but somehow "didn't know" it was violently racist?? Come on. I don't buy that for a second. Look I'm not American, so maybe I don't know enough about how racism varied by state in the 50s, but I also find it hard to believe that Ethan had never encountered racism until that point? Am I to believe California was somehow miraculously devoid of racism in 1955 except for one nasty kid in his school? I'm just confused. I felt the story was hugely inconsistent in that regard. Lastly, the characters read more as being 11-12 years old than 15.
Again, I feel a bit mean rating this one star, I think the intention behind it is good, it's just that the execution of it fell short.