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A review by starklinqs
Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
3.75
This was hard to review because depending on how much certain aspects bother me this ranges from a 3.5-4 lmao but I figured this was a good middle ground.
The book was really interesting in the dynamics portrayed - the girls have a nuanced relationship and there’s a lot of lore and backstory that I would be really interested in reading more about. It was definitely an interesting book and I wanted to know more about each girl.
Amanda’s treatment, however, was horrendous. Ultimately the book feels like a toxic friend group, but Amanda (referred to as “Mandy” despite her saying her name preference multiple times) gets multiple microaggressions thrown her way. The ending is treated as if she’s fully in the wrong by the other mains, and I just didn’t love it - or the fact that our main and Marley get together, despite Marley’s own racist tendencies. I wasn’t opposed to them getting together, but I thought that behavior was going to be called out, acknowledged, and that she would actually grow. It’s nice that Marley acknowledged how nice Becca is and that’s their group was toxic, but it doesn’t exactly change her underlying casual racism or the fact that she lobs these microaggressions and caused said toxicity multiple times. It didn’t necessarily feel like a conscience malicious thing on the writer’s part, moreso a poor attempt at nuance, so I’m not as harsh on these aspects than I would be for other books - hopefully the author has or will improve upon these in the future.
It’s one of those things where it’s a great idea and I would have LOVED to have seen more nuance in it, because this was a really interesting concept, the art was great, and I was into the characters and genuinely wanted to know more about them.
The book was really interesting in the dynamics portrayed - the girls have a nuanced relationship and there’s a lot of lore and backstory that I would be really interested in reading more about. It was definitely an interesting book and I wanted to know more about each girl.
Amanda’s treatment, however, was horrendous. Ultimately the book feels like a toxic friend group, but Amanda (referred to as “Mandy” despite her saying her name preference multiple times) gets multiple microaggressions thrown her way. The ending is treated as if she’s fully in the wrong by the other mains, and I just didn’t love it - or the fact that our main and Marley get together, despite Marley’s own racist tendencies. I wasn’t opposed to them getting together, but I thought that behavior was going to be called out, acknowledged, and that she would actually grow. It’s nice that Marley acknowledged how nice Becca is and that’s their group was toxic, but it doesn’t exactly change her underlying casual racism or the fact that she lobs these microaggressions and caused said toxicity multiple times. It didn’t necessarily feel like a conscience malicious thing on the writer’s part, moreso a poor attempt at nuance, so I’m not as harsh on these aspects than I would be for other books - hopefully the author has or will improve upon these in the future.
It’s one of those things where it’s a great idea and I would have LOVED to have seen more nuance in it, because this was a really interesting concept, the art was great, and I was into the characters and genuinely wanted to know more about them.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Murder, and Racism