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A review by chardeemacdennis
Activist: A Story of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Shooting by Lauren Elizabeth Hogg
3.0
This one was interesting. I like the idea of this series quite a bit. I want to try at least one more to see if they all have a similar tone to this one. Something about the writing was just a little "off" to me. Too cheery and heavy handed at the same time. I also found some parts of it cringy with all the mentions of how perfect her life is with great parents (even when one works crazy hours, he always has time to bake cookies at midnight to take into her bedroom to make up for all the lost moments he missed out on), great vacations, an amazing activist mother, an outstanding brother, a great GPA (even after taking on all this extra activism she still achieves over a 4.0 GPA - which when this was mentioned just felt like fluff and eye roll inducing), and just so much happiness. This is a story about a horrific event. Yes, life goes on after horrific events. Yes, you can use tragedy to make change and inspire other people. These are great lessons to make sure to let young readers know so they don't just see the gloom and see no hope. But...it was still just off to me. Early on in the book you find out that her two best friends were killed in the shooting, but she's changed her name for this book. Why? That's a big question mark for me because we know 17 people were killed in the shooting. You can find all of their names online so it's not like it's protecting their identities or the identities of their families. Omitting the names made me question the reliability of the entire story. That question of doubt started at the very beginning when we were told their names wouldn't be mentioned.
After all of that negativity and questioning of how much I liked (or didn't like) this book, on to the positives of the book. It's a quick read. It holds your interest the entire time. It will help a young generation learn about real people in history. A very short and easy to read story to help kids learn about real events.
Overall, not bad, but not great either.
After all of that negativity and questioning of how much I liked (or didn't like) this book, on to the positives of the book. It's a quick read. It holds your interest the entire time. It will help a young generation learn about real people in history. A very short and easy to read story to help kids learn about real events.
Overall, not bad, but not great either.