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A review by sapphirebubble_
Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass
3.0
Ultimately, I feel like this book had more potential.
I really liked this book for its queerness, and the dangers that come with it. The way Connor's mom acts, the pastor, the conversion camp - all of it tugged on my heart and it conveyed exactly what the author wanted to say.
But the way this book handled certain things was questionable.
This book shows minimal awareness of how racism works from the eyes of a white protagonist. Although Connor understands and comments on racism and racist microaggressions, he never does anything about it even on a personal level. The way the story is structured, it almost feels tied together by convenience because clues just fall into Connor's lap and he just conveniently hears conversations that might help him. The entire story happens along the course of a single day, which I found incredibly unbelievable given the amount of events that happen. The whole exposé and mystery solving of this conversion camp was worked on by two Black girls, and Connor just looks like big damn hero who barges in, makes life harder for everyone and somehow ends up saving them all. Too white saviour for me.
Although, I did enjoy the writing and the characters.
Find me elsewhere: Blog | BookTube | Instagram | Twitter | The Story Graph
I really liked this book for its queerness, and the dangers that come with it. The way Connor's mom acts, the pastor, the conversion camp - all of it tugged on my heart and it conveyed exactly what the author wanted to say.
But the way this book handled certain things was questionable.
This book shows minimal awareness of how racism works from the eyes of a white protagonist. Although Connor understands and comments on racism and racist microaggressions, he never does anything about it even on a personal level. The way the story is structured, it almost feels tied together by convenience because clues just fall into Connor's lap and he just conveniently hears conversations that might help him. The entire story happens along the course of a single day, which I found incredibly unbelievable given the amount of events that happen. The whole exposé and mystery solving of this conversion camp was worked on by two Black girls, and Connor just looks like big damn hero who barges in, makes life harder for everyone and somehow ends up saving them all. Too white saviour for me.
Although, I did enjoy the writing and the characters.
Find me elsewhere: Blog | BookTube | Instagram | Twitter | The Story Graph