A review by maeverose
Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.0

I hoped I would like it more. Granted I’m not the target audience but I don’t think that’s why it didn’t work for me. I went in expecting a middle grade story and that’s what I got, so I had the right expectations.

I think one of the things that bothered me was this definitely had the ‘not like other girls’ trope, a little bit. Ollie is tough, a bit of a tomboy, has an attitude, etc. Which obviously would’ve been absolutely fine on its own, but then she found Coco - a very feminine city girl - to be annoying at first, largely because of her feminine traits or tendency to get emotional easily. Coco was nothing but sweet to Ollie, I didn’t understand why she disliked her.
Yes Ollie saved her from being bullied that first time, but she just watched it happen for a while first, and didn’t save her the other time (granted she was a bit distracted by more pressing things in that scene…). She continued to be annoyed by her until she found out that she was a rock climber. Then she was like ‘oh, you’re not just a girly girl, so i guess you’re fine’. Coco also suddenly became more brave and less emotional after that reveal. And there was even that scene where Ollie thought something like ‘Coco doesn’t cry because she’s weak, she cries because she feels’. Which ??? What does that even mean? Literally why else would someone cry? Feelings are kind of what makes people cry. To me that seemed to say that Ollie thinks people’s feelings are invalid if they cry easily. Also, she didn’t think Brian was weak when he cried… interesting.
I know it’s probably Not That Deep™️, but it bothered me. Like, you can have a tough female protagonist without bringing down other girls.

There’s also fatphobia and ableism in some scenes…

Besides that though, the story was definitely reminiscent of goosebumps, which was nostalgic. I liked the descriptions of fall. I’m hoping I’ll like the second book more, based on the synopsis I’m most excited for that one. But I’m going in with slightly lower expectations now…
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