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A review by gschwabauer
Paper Chains by Elaine Vickers
3.0
Pros: realistic friendship with enough conflict to be interesting but not so much that I just wanted them to quit being friends. The aftermath of parental abandonment is handled well. Adorable sibling relationship, with bonus friendship between the little boy and his sister's best friend, which is sweet. An actually nuanced portrayal of international adoption that honors the adopted character's "origin story" and her complicated feelings about that without invalidating the love she feels for her adoptive family and the significance of those relationships.
Cons: Yet another story in which a character has a chronic health issue but it turns out that the real problem was everyone else acting like she should in any way accommodate this issue instead of being Free To Live. The story continually tries to acknowledge that yes, her heart defect is real and she should be careful, but the actual narrative only ever rewards her for taking risks and in the end it's mostly just about how her mom needs to let go and our heroine can ice skate if she just Believes In Herself and I dunno, I was kind of frustrated by the whole thing. Also, seriously, what's with middle-grade setting up so many compelling and nuanced conflicts and then suddenly everything gets tied up in a neat bow over the last two chapters?
Cons: Yet another story in which a character has a chronic health issue but it turns out that the real problem was everyone else acting like she should in any way accommodate this issue instead of being Free To Live. The story continually tries to acknowledge that yes, her heart defect is real and she should be careful, but the actual narrative only ever rewards her for taking risks and in the end it's mostly just about how her mom needs to let go and our heroine can ice skate if she just Believes In Herself and I dunno, I was kind of frustrated by the whole thing. Also, seriously, what's with middle-grade setting up so many compelling and nuanced conflicts and then suddenly everything gets tied up in a neat bow over the last two chapters?